Original artwork, not a still
Disputed attribution: Bob Wilson
There's something on the wing!
— The Twilight Zone · 1959
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
The sentence is shorthand for the lone witness no one believes, and the episode earned it: the audience sees the gremlin, the other passengers never do, and Wilson's history makes every warning sound like another symptom. Shatner's frantic performance made it a pop-culture template, parodied in the 1983 Twilight Zone film, The Simpsons and Johnny Bravo, and quoted whenever someone spots trouble on an aeroplane wing.
Context reviewed
In context
Spoilers for The Twilight ZoneShow the scene
In "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", the third episode of The Twilight Zone's fifth season (CBS, 11 October 1963), Robert Wilson is flying home on a stormy night, six months after a nervous breakdown that began on a plane. Looking out of his window, he sees a gremlin on the wing. Each time his wife Julia or the stewardess looks, the creature has ducked out of sight, so nobody believes him. Richard Matheson adapted his own short story, Richard Donner directed, and William Shatner played Wilson. Fans remember his cry as "There's something on the wing!"; in the episode he shouts about gremlins and insists that a man is out there.
Sources (3)
- Wikipedia: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet (The Twilight Zone)infobox and Plot sectionReference checked
- Twilight Zone Wiki: List of memorable quotes from the first seriesSeason 5, Nightmare at 20,000 Feet [5.3]Reference checked
- Wikiquote: The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)Nightmare at 20,000 Feet [5.3]Reference checked
Context reviewed
