Robert Franklin

Robert Franklin is one of the two main protagonists of "The Fear," the the 35th episode of Season 5 in The Twilight Zone, which aired in 1964. He is a highway patrol trooper who, alongside magazine editor Charlotte Scott, was terrorized by cyclopean aliens, but defiantly stood against their scare tactics.
Robert Franklin was portrayed by the late Peter Mark Richman, who was credited as Mark Richman.
==Biography==
=== Early life ===
Robert Franklin served in the US Army during two wars, presumably World War 2 and the Korean War, serving as a policeman between and after them. Throughout his service, despite developing a tough, serious, unwavering demeanor, he learned that being frightened was a natural human function, but reacting to fear is what really counts, opting to work through it wherever it arose.
=== The Fear ===
In the 1960s, Robert Franklin served as a highway patrol trooper somewhere in the United States. One day, he received a report from a general store worker of a rural village concerning strange lights in the sky, based on something he heard from a woman named Charlotte Scott, who lived alone in a remote mountain cabin 30 miles away from the village. The next night, dispatched to investigate, Franklin eventually found the cabin, introducing himself to the Charlotte. Allowed to enter, Franklin began asking her about the mysterious lights she claimed she saw, only for Charlotte to get upset and claim that she only mentioned the lights to put something "new" into the dialogue. Franklin tried to ask her again about the lights, but instead of answering, she told him to go away if he was looking for action. Franklin, recognizing her as a magazine fashion editor from New York who recently moved there, asked her about it, where Charlotte admitted that she had a nervous breakdown and came to the cabin to be alone, but complained that she was stuck having to share her private life with "country bumpkins" and "Gilbert and Sullivan state troopers," before telling Franklin to get lost. 
Franklin, deciding there was nothing else he could get from here, noted aloud that Charlotte likely saw everyone who didn't live up to her high standards of life as a bumpkin, and likely believed that culture was something only for "insufferable snobs," of which she was a charter member, before moving to leave. However, just as he began to open the door, there was a bright flash of light outside, and the sound of something like an aircraft. Franklin quickly drew his gun and went outside to investigate, briefly blinded by the light, but saw nothing, Charlotte joining him to ask what was wrong. He then went back inside, pulling Charlotte in with him, where she quickly locked the door. He asked if she was frightened, to which Charlotte responded that she was in fact a frightened person, afraid of facing the world and trying to act superior to hide their true nature. Franklin thanked her for an honest answer, asking her for coffee while he checks around, also offering to drive her back to town for an hour, although he was unable to determine what the light was, proposing rational explanations of a plane or meteor. Charlotte then asked him for an irrational answer, to which Franklin responded that it could be something from outer space. Charlotte then saw another pulsing light through the window, pointing it out to Franklin. 
Taking a flashlight and pistol, Franklin left to investigate the light, seeing that several trees were snapped in half by an unknown force, only stopping to call out to Charlotte to remain inside the cabin. However, he then saw none other than his own car rolling down the road on its own, picking up enough speed to roll over on its side. Franklin, joined by Charlotte, told her that the emergency brake was on, the two realizing that either the brakes failed, or someone else pushed it. Finding the car's radio broken, the pair returned to the house to phone for help, also telling Charlotte to lock the door. When Charlotte asked him if he wanted to join her "club" of frightened people, he told her about his military service, and how in the face of fear, one could either clench their fists and keep going or hide under the bed. While Charlotte claimed that she'd be under the bed, Franklin tried to use the phone, only to discover that the line was dead. 
Remaining in the house, the two drank coffee while getting the fireplace running, Franklin noting that living in a cabin like Charlotte's didn't sound like a bad life, only for some noises from the roof to startle Charlotte. Realizing that it could be an intruder, possibly the same one who flipped his car, Franklin went outside to investigate, using a ladder to get up the roof with his pistol out, where he noticed more broken tree branches, but found nothing else. However, when he got down from the roof, he noticed his car back on its wheels, and saw giant fingerprints on its side. Realizing that this must mean some sort of giant was stalking the cabin, Franklin got back inside and told Charlotte what he saw, and how the mysterious intruder must stand at over 500 feet tall. With no other options, Franklin stayed the night in the cabin, sleeping for a couple hours at a time on the couch, although there were no other sounds during the night. 
The next morning, Franklin exited the cabin to look around, looking over the giant fingerprints again and being joined by Charlotte. Franklin asked her if she had any friends who would go to extreme lengths to pull a practical joke of this scale, to which Charlotte replied that she would've had any such friend committed long ago. Franklin then saw something else a little further in the woods, and walked over to it, discovering what appeared to be a giant footprint. As he examined it, Charlotte, increasingly frightened, asked to run to the village, but Franklin pointed out that running would be futile, as the giant could easily block their path or crush them with but a finger. Franklin proposed fixing his radio to call for reinforcements, but Charlotte instead made a run for it, chased by Franklin. Just as Franklin reached her, Charlotte ran into none other than a giant cyclopean alien, towering several stories over her, making her fall to the ground in fright. Franklin drew his pistol on the alien, first struck by awe and disbelief, then ordered Charlotte to run to the village for help while he stayed to keep the alien occupied, only for Charlotte to protest that no one would believe her. As the alien merely stood staring at them, Charlotte demanded to know why it didn't do anything, also confusing Franklin, who recognized that a being like that could've destroyed the whole state long ago. He ordered Charlotte to leave again, but she opted to stand against the alien with him despite her fear. Franklin, while appreciating her newfound bravery, pointed out that he was going to fight the alien with only a revolver, but regardless, stepped forward and defiantly shot the alien four times. However, the "giant" then deflated, releasing a massive gust of wind that knocked the humans down as it fell on them. 
Franklin quickly got out of the inflatable, pulling Charlotte out, the two seeing that the creature was nothing more than a balloon, before Franklin noticed a tiny flying saucer sitting nearby. Finding a viewport on the saucer, Franklin and Charlotte peered in, seeing that the cyclopean aliens were actually extremely tiny, and were speaking to their leader, revealing that they were the source of the mysterious events: they flew their ship around the cabin, moved Franklin's car with magnets, disabled the radio and phone, spray-painted the giant fingerprints, blasted the branches, carved the footprint into the ground, and created the giant figure. The aliens declared that they had failed to frighten the humans, and begged to leave before they could be crushed. The aliens then took off, Franklin and Charlotte watching them, where Franklin wished them luck, that they could truly be giants in the next place they landed. Charlotte asked what would happen if actual giants try to invade Earth, but Franklin replied that he believed she'd spit in their eye. 
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