Button, Button (The Twilight Zone)

"Button, Button"
The Twilight Zone segment
Scene from "Button, Button"
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 20b
Directed by	Peter Medak
Written by	Logan Swanson
Based on	the short story by Richard Matheson
Original air date	March 7, 1986 (1986-03-07)
Guest appearances
Basil Hoffman as Steward Brad Davis as Arthur Lewis Mare Winningham as Norma Lewis
Episode chronology
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"Button, Button" is the second segment of the 20th episode of the first season of the revival of the television series The Twilight Zone. The segment is based on the 1970 short story of the same name by Richard Matheson; the same short story forms the basis of the 2009 film The Box. It poses the question of whether an ordinary person would be willing to cause a total stranger to die in exchange for $200,000 ($1 million in The Box) by simply pushing a button. In a documentary on the making of the movie The Box, Matheson states the inspiration for the story came from his wife, whose college professor had asked a similar question as a way of promoting a class discussion.

Matheson, who was one of the most prolific contributors to the original The Twilight Zone, wrote the teleplay for the segment himself under a pseudonym, making "Button, Button" one of just two segments in the series written by one of the original Twilight Zone writers (the other being "The Elevator").