How a Beloved ‘Twilight Zone’ Episode Starring Robert Duvall Nearly Disappeared Forever

THE TWILIGHT ZONE, 1959-64, from left: Robert Duvall, Claire Griswold, (2/21/63) 'Miniature', Season 4 — Everett Collection

What To Know

Miniature, a 1963 Twilight Zone episode starring Robert Duvall, was nearly lost due to a copyright lawsuit.
The legal dispute kept the episode out of syndication for decades, making it unavailable to many fans until its return in 1984.

Before Robert Duvall became one of the most respected actors of his generation, he stepped into The Twilight Zone for one of the show’s strangest and most heartbreaking episodes that was almost lost. The episode is called “Miniature,” and it airs Thursday, July 2, at 8/7c, as part of Heroes & Icons’ Twilight Zone marathon. While it is now easy to watch, it wasn’t always that way.

Duvall stars in the episode as Charley Parkes, a lonely and socially awkward man who finds comfort inside a museum. While visiting a dollhouse exhibit, Charley becomes convinced that one of the tiny figures inside is alive. The woman in the dollhouse, played by Claire Griswold, seems to move, play piano, and live in a world that only Charley can see.

Everyone around him thinks he is losing his grip on reality; meanwhile, Charley believes he has finally found the one place where he belongs. “Miniature” originally aired on CBS on February 21, 1963, during the fourth season of The Twilight Zone. That season used an hour-long format, and the episode was written by Charles Beaumont and directed by Walter Grauman.

TWILIGHT ZONE, 1959-64, Robert Duvall, Claire Griswold, (2/21/63) 'Miniature', Season 4

Everett Collection

It also arrived very early in Duvall’s screen career. Just the year before, he made his film debut as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. In “Miniature,” he gives another wonderful performance as a shy, misunderstood man who seems more at ease in the world of a dollhouse than in the real world.

The reason many fans missed “Miniature” for years in syndication has nothing to do with the episode’s quality or content. It became tied up in a copyright lawsuit over claims that the idea was too similar to an unproduced script called “The Thirteenth Mannequin.” The lawsuit was eventually dismissed, but the legal issue kept “Miniature” out of The Twilight Zone syndication package. That meant many viewers who grew up watching the show in reruns did not see it alongside classics like “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet,” “The Eye of the Beholder,” or “To Serve Man.”

The episode finally returned in 1984 as part of The Twilight Zone Silver Anniversary Special. That broadcast added another odd piece to its history. The dollhouse scenes were colorized, while the rest remained in the show’s familiar black-and-white style, making the dollhouse world seem even brighter and more enticing to Duvall’s character. Luckily, in recent years, the episode returned to TV reruns and streaming services, according to SyFy. You can watch it on Tubi for free anytime.

Have you ever seen this episode? Did you realize it was an early Duvall performance? Let us know what you think in the comments!