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I remember seeing a TV show when I was younger, either in the 70s or 80s, in which a drunk beggar asks a businessman for spare change, and the businessman tells the beggar, "Get a job, you bum" (or something similar).

The businessman is somehow lured into a room from which he couldn't escape, and a little door occasionally opens up, through which a bottle of booze is regularly dispensed. At one point the walls close in on the man (similar to the trash compactor from Star Wars), and spikes come out of the wall and put holes in his suit. The spikes go away and the wall retracts.

The man keeps drinking the booze, and getting more and more dishevelled, until finally he is able to leave the room. He ends up on the street, drunk and begging for change, and another businessman comes along and tells him to get a job, and the process presumably repeats itself.

I had thought it might be the Twilight Zone, but I've read all the episode descriptions, and it's not there. I've also checked out the episode descriptions from "Tales from the Darkside," "Tales from the Crypt," "Outer Limits," "Darkroom," "Freddy's Nightmares," and "Night Gallery."

I have no idea what the TV show could be. I'm pretty sure it was in colour. Any idea what this could be? Thanks!

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    Wow! You've hit all the American anthology shows I can remember from the 60s through the early 90s or so. I was going to suggest checking them out, but you've covered almost all of them. The only one I can think of that's left is The Evil Touch. I don't think there's much about that on the web, though. If you go back to the 1950s and very early 1960s, there are more anthologies, like Thriller, that you might find.
    – Tango
    Jan 28, 2014 at 8:30
  • Also, have you checked out the 1980s (or so) Twilight Zone revival? (There was also an Outer Limits revival.) I think there was another hour long anthology in the '60s that I can't remember right now.
    – Tango
    Jan 28, 2014 at 8:31
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    Hey, thanks for the advice! I just checked out The Evil Touch on IMDb, and it lists all episodes, but this wasn't one of them. Still, it looks like an interesting show, and I will try watching it. I did check all revivals for Twilight Zone and Outer Limits, and it's not there. I'll keep searching. Thanks again!
    – user22185
    Jan 28, 2014 at 8:36
  • I just found this link, that might give you some ideas: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthology_series
    – Tango
    Jan 29, 2014 at 7:34
  • Thanks! I tried looking through a few more (Tales of the Unexpected, Ray Bradbury Theatre, Darkroom), and still couldn't find anything resembling it in the episode guides. I'll keep looking. It's still nice to learn about shows I've never seen though.
    – user22185
    Jan 29, 2014 at 15:55

1 Answer 1

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The story you're referring to was one of the 'segments' in the 1978 made-for-TV anthology horror film "Alien Zone" (otherwise known as "House of the Dead").

FinalGirl offers the following review of the story (edited for brevity):

A man working in an office just doesn't get along with people...Later, a crazy-looking homeless person approaches the man, who yells "Why don't you get a job!?"

Cranky Office Man inexplicably enters an empty storefront and gets locked in. Then he inexplicably falls down an open elevator shaft. It seems that Cranky Office Man has fallen into a trap that's sort of a prototype of those found in the Saw movies

Walls begin to move and he almost gets impaled on some magically-appearing nails- they stop short of killing him, however, and this causes Cranky Office Man's brain to break- we assume anyway. It's never really explained. Whoa, deja vu!

Some bottles of wine then roll into the room and I guess Cranky Office Man has no choice but to drink them all.

As Cranky Office Man lies sleeping it off, a wall raises and Cranky Office Man is free to go. However, now he's all dirty and drunk and crazy- and when he approaches a man in a suit, the man says...yes...wait for it... "Why don't you get a job!?"

You can view the segment below

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