Original subtitles

(theme music playing)

NARRATOR: Man lives in the sunlit world

of what he believes to be reality.

But... there is,

unseen by most, an underworld.

A place that is just as real

but not as brightly lit.

A dark side.

(ball bouncing)

� �

(ball bouncing)

(dog barking outside)

BOY: Ten seconds left.

Michigan, the Rat-Brains lead by one.

Jonathan Bender, ace with the ball,

crosses mid-court.

Time running out,

he fakes, breaks free, and he's up!

You, take the garbage out.

Fake, Bender passes to fellow Hoosier.

(chanting): Hoosier! Hoosier!

And there's a pass right back.

Yes, sirree, folks.

Ten seconds left.

(chanting): Bender! Bender!

Bender! You hear me, shrimp?

Get the garbage.

Goes to shoot.

Bender! Three seconds.

He's planting his feet.

He's poised. He's aiming. Bender! Bender!

Bender! He goes to shoot. He's up! He's up!

Bender! Bender! Don't play ball in the house, Jonathan.

And he lets it go...

Stupid kid!

I told you not to play in the house.

Sorry! I told him not to play in the house.

(TV turns on) No TV.

(TV turns off) Ah, Dad.

Well, what am I supposed to do, then?

Go sit in a corner?

Read a book. Yeah.

Shock us both, make it a schoolbook.

Can I have the sports section?

No, you can have the national news.

It's so boring.

Then you can go to your room.

Mom! Mom, get up here, you won!

What is all the noise?

Come on, Mom, get in gear!

Hey, hey, don't talk

to your mother like that.

You didn't even see it, Mr. Newspaper Reader.

What's wrong?

I won?

I won!

Oh, I won! I won! I won!

We won!

Yeah, we won!

We won! What are you doing?!

We won! Yeah, you won!

Let me see the ticket! I want to see the ticket!

Margery!

Where is the ticket?

In my purse!

I always keep it in my purse.

Jonathan, go upstairs, get your mother's purse!

Oh, Harlan.

Harlan, I want a fur.

I want a fur to wear to the supermarket.

I want to spend more time in the frozen food section.

We ain't gettin' no furs.

Oh, a fur.

Jonathan, where's the ticket!

JONATHAN: I can't find it.

HARLAN: Oh, you stupid kid!

(loud clattering from upstairs)

(glass shattering)

Eleanor.

Remember that money you told me not to waste on the lottery?

Well, I did it anyway.

I won the Pick Four Jackpot!

(laughs) We're gonna be rich!

Isn't it wonderful?

(line disconnects dial tone hums)

Mom, I found it!

HARLAN: Give me that!

Get out of the way!

JONATHAN: Mom!

(phone ringing)

(ringing continues)

We don't want any!

Who put this phone back on the hook?

(doorbell chiming)

Your turn.

What is it now, Kopec?

Man here to see you, Mr. Bender, says it's important.

If it's that guy selling dental floss,

no, I don't want a year's supply.

I'll give him the brush-off?

(laughs)

(clears throat)

Here's some more telegrams for you.

I wouldn't let the boy deliver them.

That's what I'm paying you for.

Is this it?

Could I interest you in two tickets

to the Polish security guard ball?

(door slamming)

Aren't you even going to read them?

What's the point?

They're only from people trying to sell us something.

(over intercom): Mom, I can't find my I.U. T-shirt.

Hmm, small mercies. Something to do.

(doorbell chiming)

Oh...

What now, Kopec?

There's another guy here to see you.

Whoever it is, tell him I'm not interested.

Well, he says to tell Cuddles that Tinker is here.

Cuddles?

That's what he said.

What's his name?

Winston McNeely McGee.

Or that's what he told me anyway.

You tell that son of a...

...the exact average width.

Shoulder blade to shoulder blade, 25 inches.

A textbook endomorphic-type man.

Do you want me to punch him?

Winnie! Well, don't just stand there-- come on in.

Cuddles.

Oh!

(door slams)

(groans)

250 milligrams of acetaphetamin,

65 milligrams of caffeine,

uh, microcrystalline cellulose, uric acid,

250 milligrams of... (gasps) um...

Do you have any acetylsalicylic acid?

You want an aspirin, right, Tinker? Mm.

Harlan, get Tinker an aspirin.

Margery!

Well, look at you.

You are still one fine figure of--

20% body fat

and 80% mean and lean tissue, Cuddles.

Aw, you're sweet, Tinker.

Oh, have I got a headache! Mm!

Mom!

Where are you going, sweetheart?

Oh, I'm going to go play video games.

Isn't he a darling, Winnie?

He's got his father's nose, of course, but... Mm-hmm.

MARGERY: don't you think he has my eyes?

Oh, that's normal.

After all, with 23 sets of chromosomes

in the gamete, the chances of him looking

exactly like either one of you, are more than one in 900--

oh, actually, it's 7,976,400.

Oh, my head!

Ow.

Ow, ow, ow!

(squealing)

(squealing and groaning)

Oh... ah.

Here's your aspirin. Oh.

Now get out of here.

MARGERY: Harlan.

We haven't seen Winnie for a while.

And I want him to stay.

Well, what does he want?

It's pretty nervy Winnie showing up here

after all these years.

The man who tried to cuckold me

the night before our wedding.

Primates. Primates, Harlan.

Did you know primates first stood, walked and ran

on two legs more than three million years ago?

Evolving from Australopithecus africanesis

to Homo erectus, Homo sapiens, Neanderthal,

all the way up to modern man?

A genus that could one day be known as the Harlan Benderus.

(laughing) Tinker, what's gotten into you?

Are you sick?

Sick?

(laughing maniacally)

No. Never better.

Never smarter.

In fact, the portion of my central nervous system

in the vertebrate cranium responsible

for the interpretation of sensory impulses,

the coordination of bodily activities,

the exercise of thoughts and emotions,

have never ever been this better.

Ha, ha! Oh! Oh!

HARLAN: I don't believe this.

(pills rattling) Margery, what's wrong with him?

Harlan, I've got the whole world... in my head.

Now, that's what I wanted to talk to you about.

HARLAN: If you've come for money, Winnie, forget it.

Harlan, it's power,

centrifugal force, the universe.

I want you to help me conquer the world.

Hey, neato. How?

Go to your room.

Oh, Dad.

HARLAN: Go!

You, get the hell out of my chair!

(busy signal)

Did you know

the first automatic

telephone switchboard was installed in 1892

in La Porte, Indiana?

Now think about that. Don't!

(phone ringing) Don't!

No, we don't want any computer stock.

Winnie, I'm a busy man.

What do you want?

Harlan, I am offering you a partnership

in something that will change the world.

You said we should be looking for something

worthwhile, Harlan.

Yeah, but not with this crazy bozo.

JONATHAN: Dad, can I come down now? No!

Harlan, I want you to help me conquer the world.

You're wasting your time.

Mom, can I come down now?

No!

JONATHAN: Mom?

I invented something, see?

And when I heard about you winning all that money...

You thought you could take some of it away from me

like you tried to take Margery away from me.

I thought we put that to bed.

No!

Oh! No.

I want to make money for you.

(sighs)

I can give you the world, Harlan.

Trust me.

(sighs)

We can own the world!

(laughing)

The two of us,

if you'll just give me a little financial help.

See, I invented

a drug, and it gives me total recall.

I bet you know the way out, then.

What is intelligence?

A capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.

I got the secret to acquisition.

(chuckles)

Out of here, Tinker.

Oh, Harlan, remember your manners.

You go ahead, Winnie.

Tell Harlan all about your little invention.

In fact, why don't you two just discuss a little business

while I go and freshen up?

(cracking knuckles)

All right, Winnie.

JONATHAN: Dad, can I come down now?

No!

You won't regret it, Harlan.

I'm talking about the optimization

of the human computer.

The ability to search one's lifetime library

of learning and experience.

Winnie, please!

You want to know who the first six kings of England were?

Egbert, Aethelwulf, Aethelbald,

Aethelberht, Aethelred the First and Alfred.

(laughing)

You want to know, uh,

the time the United States had two presidents?

Who cares?

I-I-I can name you...

I can name you the U.S. Open golf champions

from 1895 to date.

Rawlins, Foulis, Herd, Lloyd, Smith, Anderson.

Uh, uh, no, wait a minute.

Uh, I forgot, uh, 1900.

That was the Brit-- Vardon.

Then comes Anderson.

Winnie, will you cut it out, please?

Harlan, this is the key to conquering the world!

1877-- Rutherford B. Hayes and Ulysses S. Grant

were both president for a day.

You know what?

I learned that one time hearing

on the television-- a quiz show.

(laughing)

Listen to this.

(squawking like a bird)

(dog barking)

(continues squawking)

(dog barking)

Well, that's the closest I can come

to a ruffneck grouse mating call.

I heard that once

right outside my bedroom window in 1954.

Can you do a bald eagle?

(sighs) Medicine.

Education.

I... I am talking about the upwelling

of the unconsciousness.

The ability to remember everything!

(chuckles) You can win every quiz show on television.

Knowledge is power, Harlan.

But it does make my head ache!

(heavy thud)

Everything you ever read,

ever saw, ever heard, ever overheard

is locked in your brain right now.

Everything that you encounter from this day on

will be parked in your memory bank,

and only you can get fast takeout!

(laughs)

Oh, my.

These capsules will unlock all that information,

and then we can rule the world, Harlan!

(laughing maniacally)

(laughing)

You take one of these capsules...

and the blocks

between your brain cells are weakened for an hour.

20 of them, and you are a super-genius for life.

You'll remember everything. You won't forget.

You'll remember that first slap

that the nurse gave you on your naked bottom

that started you breathing

to the name of the nurse that took you out

to your father's four-door.

Who wants to remember that?

Harlan, let's talk money.

I know more about the Fortune 500

than any insider on Wall Street.

I can give you the long-term cycles

of every stock on every stock exchange.

I've got them all in my head right now.

I even know the private broker signals.

Wave up for buy. Wave down for sell.

Harlan, give me a million dollars.

No!

What? Just a million.

You can spare it.

Besides, I'll double it in a week.

In a year, we'll have a billion dollars.

A billion dollars!

You hear that, Margery?

Hey, he's going to make us even more popular with the IRS.

So, we'll income average.

No, no, no, no. Forget taxes!

I know loopholes you can drive an armored truck through.

Think, Harlan.

Think what a super genius

could do with a billion dollars!

I don't think I want you running the world, Tinker.

Do you want to?

JONATHAN (over intercom): Dad, can I come down now?

No! You will.

After you take one of these capsules,

you'll be able to see everything at once!

I mean, you'll get the big picture, Harlan.

I'll sell you the whole bottle for $500,000.

And then we'll both be super geniuses.

One of these, and I'll remember everything

for an hour, right?

Hmm. With you, five minutes would be enough.

The first one's on me. Be my guest.

Will my head hurt?

What is a little headache

when you can rule the world?

(laughs) Harlan, rule the world?

Come on, Harlan.

$100,000.

That's all I need.

(stammers)

There is no limit!

Just-- Harlan, come here.

Just take one.

It is too good to be true!

Try it.

You're crazy, bozo.

Get that candy out of my face.

No. What are you doing?

Harlan! HARLAN: Kopec, get in here!

(grunting) What?

Ow!

Kopec! Hey, Kopec!

All right, what's the problem?

He's the problem! Get him out of here!

All right. Come on.

Harlan Bender,

don't you dare throw Winnie out of this house!

He's almost family.

All right. You're coming with me, you little weenie. Ow.

KOPEC: Come here. Harlan, don't dare let him take him like that!

Listen to me.

There's 483,122 security cops in this country.

Just drive him out of town and dump him in some garbage site.

...of every hundred cops get hurt bad, really bad.

(shouting) (body thuds)

You had no reason to treat Winnie like that.

We have more money than we even know what to do with.

Couldn't you have given him a couple

of lousy hundred thousand dollars?

JONATHAN: I'm tired of being locked in my room. Can I come down now?

No! Yes!

(door opens, then closes)

Clean up that mess for your mother, will you, dear?

And look at yourself.

Standing there, looking like some dance hall floozy.

Come on, Margery. I didn't mean anything by it.

I'm sorry about poor Winnie, but forget him, okay?

We're rich.

Why don't we start living as though we were rich?

Well, it's about time.

You know what? Hmm?

I'm going to take you for a pizza.

A pizza?

Yeah. We'll fly to New York.

We'll have a pizza.

We'll go to a show with music and a couple of lights.

Well, what about Jonathan?

We'll get a babysitter.

Mrs. Turner will be happy for the work.

On such short notice?

Oh, come on.

Oh, Harlan, let's do it. It sounds like fun.

Let's really live.

Aw...

JONATHAN: The airline number is 555-0404.

Mrs. Turner is 555-1645.

And the Broadway ticket office is 1-800-276-3939.

Flying time from here to New York

with consideration for wind direction and velocity

is three hours, 27 minutes.

If you leave within the hour,

you'll make the 8:00 curtain call.

You know, on top of everything else,

these taste terrific.

No, don't trouble yourself.

I can only stay a minute.

I was on my way to an important business meeting,

and I had Kopec bring me by.

How are you, Mom? Dad?

Everything's fine.

Great.

My accountant tells me

that you've been touching your living allowance

a little too heavily for liquor.

You want to watch that, now?

We will.

Good. I appreciate that.

Do you know the mistake Winnie made?

He didn't realize that his drug would work that much better

on a brain that's still growing.

His brain overloaded. Couldn't take it.

But me? That's another story.

Uh, Jonathan, it was sweet of you

to bring this week's groceries.

I almost forgot why I came.

(laughs)

That's a joke.

(chuckles nervously)

Kopec?

I thought you'd like a final copy of the court order

making me your legal guardian.

Cost me a quarter of a million dollars

and set three precedents, but it was worth it.

Now we can get on to the important business.

(fastens briefcase)

Let's be going, Kopec.

I don't want to be late for the stockholder's meeting.

Heads are going to roll.

Jonathan...

with your father not working,

and, uh, our not going out very much,

there's very little to do.

Do you think we could, uh,

afford cable for the television?

Nope.

No cable TV.

You could always read a book.

Right?

NARRATOR: The dark side is always there.

Waiting for us to enter.

Waiting to enter us.

Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight.