The Rip Van Winkle Caper story
A gang of gold thieves use suspended animation chambers, set to revive them in a hundred years, to evade the authorities. Directed by: Jus Addiss. Story by: Rod Serling.
11 total · 2 choice · 5 major · 4 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| greed for riches | choice | Four crooks made off with $1 million worth of gold bars in a train heist. But DeCruz, who was not content to divide up the bounty equally, greedily went about taking every chance he could to get more of the fortune for himself. |
| you can't eat money | choice | The moral of which is that money (or gold) is in itself worthless compared to necessities of life, such as water. |
| how to commit a crime and get away with it | major | Four crooks hatched this elaborate plot to get away with stealing $1 million worth of gold bars: Put themselves in suspended animation and wake up 100 years in the future after everyone had forgotten about the crime so that they would not have to face any consequences. |
| ironic twist of fate | major | Had the crooks made it out of the desert they would have discovered that the $1 million in gold bars that they'd brought with them from 100 years in the past were now worthless. The reason being that the people in this time knew how to synthesize gold. |
| robbery | major | Four crooks masterminded the theft of $1 million worth of gold bars from a train on its way from Fort Knox to Los Angeles. |
| suspended animation | major | Four men placed themselves in suspended animation boxes with designs of being revived 100 years in the future. |
| what if I found myself in the future | major | Three of the four crooks who had placed themselves in suspended animation woke up 100 years in the future. |
| betrayal | minor | DeCruz killed his co-conspirator Brooks in cold blood to increase his own share of the $1 million in gold bars that they'd stolen in a train heist. |
| murder | minor | DeCruz deliberately killed Brooks in a hit and run and arranged things so that it appeared that Brooks had died in accident. |
| nuclear holocaust | minor | Mr. Farwell speculated that the absence of cars was due to a war and "the bomb". |