Air date: March 9, 1962
In a local park, a group of young children play with Old Ben (J. Pat O'Malley), an elderly man with all kinds of unique abilities, like super-strength and shape-shifting. The children don't find this at all strange; they just consider him fun to play with. They start off by playing baseball, but Ben knocks the ball to the horizon when it's his turn to bat. Disappointed, they decide to play "spaceman" and ask him to transform into a hideous alien that they can pretend to fight, to which he complies.
When it gets late and everyone goes home, Ben carries his favorite of the children, the leg-brace wearing Jenny (Susan Gordon), to her apartment. Jenny's shrewish aunt, Mrs. Gann (Nancy Kulp), orders Jenny inside and is very rude to Ben, who nonetheless bids Jenny goodbye and leaves. Sometime later, two men in suits roam the block, asking people if they have seen Ben. Mrs. Gann assumes they are cops and is eager to assist them in their search, as she cannot stand things out of the ordinary like Ben.
Ben sneaks into Jenny's room later that night. He reveals to her that he is actually an alien criminal who fled his planet and took refuge on Earth, as well as the fact that the two men are police officers from his planet sent to arrest him. Ben says sadly that he must flee once again, but as a parting gift, he heals Jenny's leg with an alien device. He admits that he was tempted to heal her injured leg the moment they met, but the alien cops would have detected it and tracked him down. He then leaves as Jenny tearfully begs him not to go. The two men track the energy signal to Jenny's apartment. After seeing that Jenny can now walk, they deduce what Ben has done. One of them points a device at Jenny, prompting his partner to become horrified and ask if he's gone mad, but he retorts that they don't have many options at this point. He zaps Jenny with the device, the young girl growing terribly ill and collapsing in pain.
A doctor makes a house call to examine Jenny later on. Mrs. Gann asks what happened to her, but the doctor sadly admits that he can't figure it out as the duo leave the room. Ben returns and heals Jenny's sickness, but their reunion is short-lived when the two men enter. Ben angrily tells them that harming Jenny was uncalled for. They apologize, but claim that they needed to do what they did so they could finally find him. It is then revealed that Ben is not actually a criminal, but the beloved king of his planet. He explains to Jenny that he just grew weary of his responsibilities and fled. The two men were sent to find him and plead with Ben to return, as his people love him and are lost without his guidance.
Ben reluctantly agrees to return home, but when Jenny requests to come with him, the men refuse, saying that it's against the rules. Jenny gets an idea and asks for a minute alone to say goodbye to him. They agree after Ben promises, in the name of their ancestors, that he won't run away again. The men leave the room, but when they do so, it is revealed that they have frozen time to prevent interference. They consider Mrs. Gann, then pull her cigarette out of her mouth and dispose of it. The men return to find that Ben has shape-shifted into a duplicate of Jenny. They are unable to tell them apart, so they are forced to take both, allowing Jenny and her friend to stay together forever.
The Fugitropes:
- Adopted into Royalty: Possibly Jenny, since it's never specified exactly how she is going to become a queen when she grows up.
- Affectionate Nickname: Ben is fond of calling Jenny "Little Monkey".
- Always Save the Girl: Ben intended to do this when he returned to heal Jenny. It becomes an inversion when it's revealed that he has to return to his planet to rule, because his people need him.
- Anger Born of Worry: Mrs. Gann has shades of this when Jenny falls ill seemingly for no reason.
- Batman Gambit: The two men make Jenny sick because they know Ben will return to heal her. Not only does it work perfectly, it's even lampshaded.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Jenny has her bum leg healed, she gets to stay with Ben, she no longer has to live with her tempermental shrew of an aunt, and she even becomes Ben's queen years after they return to his planet.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Before we know who the two other men are, the reaction of the one who protests making Jenny sick comes off as this.
- Everyone Has Standards: Even though Ben is cross at Mrs. Gann's abusive treatment of Jenny, he's wise enough to advise Jenny not to hold a grudge against her aunt.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Downplayed. Mrs. Gann isn't evil, but as Rod Serling puts it, she's so ill-tempered that if she were to find a photo of Ben's true form, she wouldn't have the imagination to recognize it. Neither would she have the faintest idea that her niece is be living a happier existence as an "honest to goodness queen".
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Mrs. Gann shows hints of this during an exchange with Jenny:Mrs. Gann: Who were you talking to?Jenny: Myself.Mrs. Gann: Cut it out. You can go crazy that way.
- Freudian Excuse: Played with. While not specified, Ben theorizes that perhaps Mrs. Gann is so abusive and tempermental because of how she was brought up.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Jenny is shown in the opening scene to be the only girl among the children in the park, and they regularly tease and bully her for being a girl and having her leg brace.
- Friend to All Children: All the children in town love playing with Ben, and he in turn enjoys spending time with them as well, since they see his alien abilities as "magic". He holds an especially soft spot for Jenny, spending the whole episode trying to protect her from his captors.
- Happy Ending: Despite the latter having to return to his home planet as their king, Ben and Jenny get to stay together. As such, Jenny is freed from her rather unhappy lifestyle, having to put up with teasing for her injured leg and her short-tempered and uptight aunt, and will even grow up to be an "honest to goodness queen".
- The High Queen: Rod Serling comments that Jenny will ultimately become Ben's "honest to goodness queen", implying the two of them will rule his kingdom together in kindness.
- Human Outside, Alien Inside: Ben belongs to a race of extraterrestrial shapeshifters, whose default forms are entirely human.
- I Did What I Had to Do: The man who makes Jenny sick gives this as his reason for doing so when Ben and even his own partner are appalled at him.
- Intergenerational Friendship: On the surface, Jenny and Ben are a classic example of a small child being friends with an elderly man. However, Ben's default form and his true age present a rare age gap between a little girl and a teenage boy who has lived to be roughly 1,000 years old.
- Lighter and Softer: A thousands-year old alien befriends an innocent little girl and tries to evade a pair of fellow aliens who have been sent to capture him.
- Mandatory Unretirement: Ben is forced back to being the king of his planet seemingly because no one else knows what to do.
- Mayfly–December Romance: According to one interpretation of the ending narration, this will happen with Ben and Jenny. He's an alien king who is at least 1,000 years old, and she's a human girl around 10. Although, given his healing powers, it's certainly not out of the question that he might also be able to alter the speed of her aging to prevent this.
- Muggle Sports, Super Athletes: While playing baseball with Jenny and the other neighborhood children, Ben uses his alien abilities to hit the ball over the fence and into the horizon, with little-to-no effort.
- Mundane Utility: Ben uses his super-strength and his shapeshifting to play with the neighborhood children.
- No Indoor Voice: Mrs. Gann, mostly when she's scolding Jenny and telling Ben to stay away from her niece. Ben even points out that her loud volume is largely unnecessary.
- One of the Kids: Ben's first scene has him joyously playing baseball and "spaceman" with the neighborhood children, loving every bit of it.
- Pet the Dog: Although Mrs. Gann is a shrewish and abusive guardian, when Jenny falls gravely ill, her aunt becomes nice enough to tuck her niece into bed.
- Puppet King: Ben implies at one point that another reason why he left his kingdom was because a lot of his ideas were shot down by "The Council", hinting that he's essentially just a figurehead.
- Really 700 Years Old: Ben ruled his planet for more than 1,000 years before he came to Earth, and it's said that he'll live for at least another 4,000.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Ben fled his home planet after ruling for 1,000 years and subsequently growing bored.
- Shape Shifter Default Form: We see both Type A (the photograph) and Type B (his appearance for most of the episode).
- Sincerity Mode: Jenny says that Ben must have been a really good king if the two men that were searching for him wanted him to come home that badly. The men confirm her theory, saying that Ben was the best king they ever had.
- Spot the Imposter: When Ben shapeshifts into a clone of Jenny, the men are unable to figure out which is the real one, so they are forced to take both Jenny and Ben with them. One of them even lampshades how unfair the situation is.
- Time Stands Still: Ben's pursuers freeze Mrs. Gann and the doctor in time so they and Ben can leave without them noticing.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: Ben can change his form into anything that he can imagine. Aside from the old man disguise that he has been using since he met Jenny, he turns into a Martian, a mouse, a fly, and Jenny herself. His true form is that of a handsome young man who looks completely human.
- Wife Husbandry: In his closing narration, Serling says that Jenny will grow to be "an honest-to-goodness queen," making her marrying Ben a possibility. Of course, it's also possible she could be Adopted into Royalty and Ben will merely pass her the kingdom when she grows up.
- Would Hurt a Child: The two men make Jenny ill so that Ben will return to heal her, knowing how protective he is of the girl.
