Five Characters in Search of an Exit story
An Army major, a clown, a hobo, a ballerina and a bagpiper find themselves in a cylinder with no memory of how they got there. Directed by: Lamont Johnson. Story by: Marvin Petal, Rod Serling.
10 total · 6 major · 3 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| anthropomorphic object come to life | major | It turned out that the five occupants of a large metal cylinder were actually dolls come to life, and that the cylinder was actually a Christmas toy collection barrel for a girls' orphanage. |
| human vs. captivity | major | A clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and an army major found themselves trapped inside a large metal cylinder. |
| human vs. inexplicable adversity | major | A clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and an army major were left to make sense of how they all came to be trapped inside a large metal cylinder. |
| inaction vs. futile action | major | The Major insisted on a variety of ineffective escape attempts that the others poo-pooed as they'd rather do nothing at all. |
| what if I found myself in a strange place | major | A clown, hobo, ballet dancer, bagpiper, and an army major found themselves trapped inside a large metal cylinder without any explanation as to how or why it had occurred. |
| what if I had amnesia | major | None of the five people were able to remember anything about their lives before having arrived in the large metal cylinder. |
| Christmas traditions | minor | There was a barrel on the street for collecting toys to be distributed as Christmas presents at a girls' orphanage. |
| the afterlife | minor | The army major theorized that they were in hell. |
| what if I were trapped in a nightmare | minor | The clown speculated that they might all be characters in somebody's nightmare. |
| what if I found out I was a different person than I thought I was | not | Unlike Marsha in tz1985e2x04a "The After Hours", the characters in this story never actually found out what they were: children's dolls. |