Tooth and Consequences

"Tooth and Consequences"
The Twilight Zone episode
File:Tooth and Consequences.jpg Scene from Tooth and Consequences
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 16c
Directed by	Robert Downey
Written by	Haskell Barkin
Production code	47
Original air date	January 31, 1986 (1986-01-31)
Guest appearances
Kenneth Mars: Tooth Fairy David Birney: Dr. Myron Mandel Martin Azarow: Man Nat Bernstein: Hobo Oliver Clark: Dr. Walter Pinkham Mina Kolb: Mrs. Taylor Teresa Ganzel: Lydia Bixby Jack Lindine: Hobo #2 Mitzi McCall: Middle-Aged Woman Ermal Williamson: Mr. Frank Peggy Pope: Mrs. Schulman Jane Ralston: Receptionist Ron Ross: Hobo #3 Harry Stephens: Eating Hobo

"Tooth and Consequences" is the third and final segment of the sixteenth episode from the first season (1985–86) of the television series The Twilight Zone. In this segment, a terminally depressed dentist is granted his greatest desire by the tooth fairy.

Plot

Dentist Myron Mandel has problems with self-esteem. He even feels the necessity to discuss it with office neighbor Walter Pinkham who is a psychiatrist. Mandel states that it feels like his patients shrink from his touch but the psychiatrist shoos him out of his office after attempting to convince him to let it go. Upon returning to his own office, Mandel tells his receptionist to send home the waiting patients, and he claims he is sick. The receptionist has had enough of his self-loathing and quits her job. Mandel goes out and dismisses his patients and says that he's going to do missionary work with Eskimos. In reality, however, he makes the decision to commit suicide.

As he tries to hang himself, a patient named Lydia comes to the office looking for a hairbrush that she lost the day before. Mandel gets the nerve to ask her out but she rejects him. After Lydia leaves, he again tries to hang himself but the light fixture breaks. He is caught by a burly man who identifies himself as the tooth fairy. When the tooth fairy asks Mandel if he can do anything for him, he wishes that Lydia would fall madly in love with him and that all of his patients would like him. His wish is granted, and yet it does not turn out as he had hoped. He becomes tired and overworked and Lydia constantly wants to make love. Mandel decides to run away from his new life and boards a freight train. On the train are a group of hobos who identify themselves as ex-dentists. They tell him that, with them not around, the tooth fairy gets more business.

External links

• "Tooth and Consequences" at IMDb