Such Interesting Neighbors (Details)
citation: Collier's, January 6, 1951, 127(1):20-21, 45-47
alias: None
teaser: They kept making odd little mistakes — and almost uncanny predictions. I guess we'll never again have [such interesting neighbors.]
summary: Al and Nelly Lewis watch the arrival of new neighbors, Ted and Ann Hellenbeck. From their behavior, the Lewises conclude the Hellenbecks are newlyweds from another country. They are wrong.
The Lewises note odd things about the Hellenbecks: that Ann's and Al's stories about why they moved from South America to San Rafael, CA are different; that Ann seems confused by the simplest things, yet possesses some interesting technology; that Ted is very certain a book by Walter Braden will be worth two thousand times its current value in a hundred and forty years, and so on. Nevertheless, the Lewises and Hellenbecks become friends.
Al discovers Ted, who needs Al's help doing the simplest things, is an inventor. He's designed and sold a replacement for the safety pin, and is working on a measuring device that uses a thin beam of concentrated light.
One evening, as Ted leafs through a science fiction magazine Al was reading, he expresses interest in a Ray Bradbury time travel story Al described to him. Ted tells Al he and a friend also wrote a story about time travel.
The story Ted shows Al describes the history of time travel, and how it became as popular as television. The as yet unwritten ending is that people abandoned the world to travel and live in the past; in more peaceful times.
Al and Ted discuss the logic and likelihood of Ted's story, before dropping the subject.
Sometime later, Ted and Ann Hellnebeck move to Orange, New Jersey to be with some old friends. Al and Nelly get new neighbors, but by comparison with the Hellenbecks, they seem kind of dull.
words: 6,065
genre: Science Fiction (Time Travel)
similar: None
people: Al Lewis, Nelly Lewis, Ted Hellenbeck, Ann Hellenbeck, Walter Braden, Ray Bradbury, Ralph Kent, Finis Bride
places: San Rafael, CA; South America; Newton, KS; Tallahassee, FL; Chicago, IL; Mill Valley, CA; Orange, NJ
comments: Such Interesting Neighbors was the basis for the same-named episode of Steve Spielberg's NBC TV series, Amazing Stories. Originally aired on March 20, 1987, episode 42 starred TV veterans Frederick Coffin and Marcia Strassman as Al and Nel Lewis. New Wave singer Adam Ant and Victoria Catlin (Twin Peaks) starred as Ted and Ann Hellenbeck. Unlike Finney's story, the TV Lewises and Hellenbecks each have a son, Randy (Ian Fried) and Brad (Ryan McWhorter).
Written by Tom McLoughlin, and directed by Graham Baker, episode 42 bears only a superficial resemblance to Finney's story. The Hellenbecks are less charming, and more obviously peculiar. Their reason for returning to the past is not to live in more peaceful times, but for Ann to have a naturally-born child; something prohibited in the future. Rather than the Hellenbecks moving to Orange, New Jersey to be with old friends, they depart rather subject the Lewises to attacks by heat-seeking spheres and Terminator-like robots from the future.
Another device specific to episode 42 is experiencing deja vu when time is disrupted. Such a "disturbance of the matrix" would become well-known to fans of The Matrix (1999).