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"A Penny for Your Thoughts"

The Twilight Zone episode

Dick York in "A Penny for Your Thoughts"

Episode no.

Season 2
Episode 52

Directed by

James Sheldon

Written by

George Clayton Johnson

Featured music

Stock

Production code

173-3650

Original air date

February 3, 1961

Guest stars

Dick York: Hector B. Poole
June Dayton: Miss Turner
Dan Tobin: Mr. Bagby
Hayden Rorke: Mr. Sykes
Cyril Delevanti: Mr. Smithers

Episode chronology

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"The Invaders"

Next →
"Twenty Two"

List of Twilight Zone episodes

"A Penny for Your Thoughts" is an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone.

Contents

1 Plot
2 See also
3 References
4 External links

Plot

Hector B. Poole, a timid bank clerk, gains telepathic powers after tossing a coin that miraculously stands on its edge. He discovers that he is able to "listen" other people's thoughts, and is surprised to hear the things people are thinking around him.

He first "hears" his boss thinking about a weekend affair he is planning with his mistress. He then "hears" a businessman, Mr. Sykes, trying to take out a large loan to pay for a run at the horse track to win back money he has embezzled from his company. Hector informs his boss, Mr. Bagby, and thwarts the businessman's plans. Hector then "hears" Miss Turner, a co-worker, has been admiring Hector from afar, but wishes he would be more bold. Hector "hears" her thoughts and decides to take her into his confidence by revealing his "gift" to her.

Eventually he uncovers an apparent plot by an old trusted employee, Mr. Smithers, to steal money from the bank. The plot is eventually disproved; the veteran bank employee admits he has been thinking about stealing money from the bank for years, but would never go through with such a plan. Mr. Bagby fires Hector, but later reinstates him when he discovers Hector was correct about Sykes. With the encouragement of Miss Turner, Hector uses his knowledge of Mr. Bagby's tryst to blackmail his boss into giving him not only a better position as an office manager at the bank, but also Mr. Smithers a long overdue vacation.

After work, as Poole returns home with Miss Turner, he inadvertently knocks down the coin he stood up earlier. To his relief, his ability to read minds is gone; but he is still a changed man, for the better.

References

DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. ISBN 978-1-59393-136-0
Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9703310-9-0

External links

v d e Twilight Zone (1959) episodes

Season 1	"Where Is Everybody?" "One for the Angels" "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" "The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine" "Walking Distance" "Escape Clause" "The Lonely" "Time Enough at Last" "Perchance to Dream" "Judgement Night" "And When the Sky Was Opened" "What You Need" "The Four of Us Are Dying" "Third from the Sun" "I Shot an Arrow into the Air" "The Hitch-Hiker" "The Fever" "The Last Flight" "The Purple Testament" "Elegy" "Mirror Image" "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" "A World of Difference" "Long Live Walter Jameson" "People Are Alike All Over" "Execution" "The Big Tall Wish" "A Nice Place to Visit" "Nightmare as a Child" "A Stop at Willoughby" "The Chaser" "A Passage for Trumpet" "Mr. Bevis" "The After Hours" "The Mighty Casey" "A World of His Own"

Season 2	"King Nine Will Not Return" "The Man in the Bottle" "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" "A Thing About Machines" "The Howling Man" "The Eye of the Beholder" "Nick of Time" "The Lateness of the Hour" "The Trouble With Templeton" "A Most Unusual Camera" "The Night of the Meek" "Dust" "Back There" "The Whole Truth" "The Invaders" "A Penny for Your Thoughts" "Twenty Two" "The Odyssey of Flight 33" "Mr. Dingle, the Strong" "Static" "The Prime Mover" "Long Distance Call" "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim" "The Rip Van Winkle Caper" "The Silence" "Shadow Play" "The Mind and the Matter" "Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?" "The Obsolete Man"

Season 3	"Two" "The Arrival" "The Shelter" "The Passersby" "A Game of Pool" "The Mirror" "The Grave" "It's a Good Life" "Deaths-Head Revisited" "The Midnight Sun" "Still Valley" "The Jungle" "Once Upon a Time" "Five Characters in Search of an Exit" "A Quality of Mercy" "Nothing in the Dark" "One More Pallbearer" "Dead Man's Shoes" "The Hunt" "Showdown with Rance McGrew" "Kick the Can" "A Piano in the House" "The Last Rites of Jeff Myrtlebank" "To Serve Man" "The Fugitive" "Little Girl Lost" "Person or Persons Unknown" "The Little People" "Four O'Clock" "Hocus-Pocus and Frisby" "The Trade-Ins" "The Gift" "The Dummy" "Young Man's Fancy" "I Sing the Body Electric" "Cavender Is Coming" "The Changing of the Guard"

Season 4	"In His Image" "The Thirty-Fathom Grave" "Valley of the Shadow" "He's Alive" "Mute" "Death Ship" "Jess-Belle" "Miniature" "Printer's Devil" "No Time Like the Past" "The Parallel" "I Dream of Genie" "The New Exhibit" "Of Late I Think of Cliffordville" "The Incredible World of Horace Ford" "On Thursday We Leave for Home" "Passage on the Lady Anne" "The Bard"

Season 5	"In Praise of Pip" "Steel" "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" "A Kind of a Stopwatch" "The Last Night of a Jockey" "Living Doll" "The Old Man in the Cave" "Uncle Simon" "Probe 7, Over and Out" "The 7th Is Made Up of Phantoms" "A Short Drink From a Certain Fountain" "Ninety Years Without Slumbering" "Ring-a-Ding Girl" "You Drive" "The Long Morrow" "The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross" "Number 12 Looks Just Like You" "Black Leather Jackets" "Night Call" "From Agnes—With Love" "Spur of the Moment" "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" "Queen of the Nile" "What's in the Box" "The Masks" "I Am the Night—Color Me Black" "Sounds and Silences" "Caesar and Me" "The Jeopardy Room" "Stopover in a Quiet Town" "The Encounter" "Mr. Garrity and the Graves" "The Brain Center at Whipple's" "Come Wander With Me" "The Fear" "The Bewitchin' Pool"

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A Penny for Your Thoughts

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The Twilight Zone: A Penny for Your Thoughts

Plot