TRACKDOWN - "The End Of The World" (1958)

 Welcome back to a blue plate Saturday Night Special feature from 1958!
This is without a doubt the most incredible thing I've seen lately, and it doesn't quit for the full 22 minutes!

 It's hard to imagine that this story was written some 61 years ago, and in that amount of time, we still haven't seemed to learn a damn thing!

 This is a story about a con-man, and a liar, the High Priest of Fraud, a man called called Trump! No, not Donald, but Walter! He's here to save the place from certain disaster because the sky is falling, and only he has the power to keep everybody safe! The metaphors continue for 22 minutes!

 All I can say is that the writer John Robinson must have been clairvoyant to write a story like this!  Besides "Trackdown," John Robinson also wrote many episodes of "Dragnet."

 Robert (I Spy) Culp is Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman. He's a good and honest man!

 That's the crooked sheriff on the left and the shyster Mr. Trump on the right! The sheriff was played by Dabbs Greer who had 317 acting credits including his role in the original "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers," and "It! The Terror From Beyond Space." Dabbs also has the distinction of being in two "Twilight Zone" episodes, "Valley Of The Shadow," and "Hocus-Pocus And Frisby," and two episodes of  "The Outer Limits." Walter Trump was played by Lawrence Dobkin who was also in "The Day The Earth Stood Still," "Them," and "Space Patrol" among his 212 credits! Guys like these two are the unspoken core foundation of two or three decades of movies and TV!

 So Trump tells Hoby that he has degrees in DU MC SSR. That's Doctor Of The Universe, Mastery Of Cometry, and Student Of Stellar Reactions! Hoby ain't impressed!

 Back on the street, Trump has the denizens all fired up, and has them convinced that only he can save them from all the space stuff that's going to come falling down from the sky at midnight. He has protective umbrellas with special deflective signs on them for the people, and to protect their cattle he has this common 5/8" flat washer that he claims is a metal mined in Peru called Magnetium that will also do the trick! The drones just eat it up!

 "I know these people all pretty well, and right now there is nothing in the world that can change their minds, and anybody who tries to, could end up getting hurt. They're not going to listen!"

Bzzzzzzzz!

 It's right about here somewhere that when you watch this spectacle, your jaw will drop when Trump says "Trust me....I can build a wall around your homes that nothing can penetrate!" Nothing, no meteors, and no Mexicans!

 "So what do you want me to do about it?"

 Even more irony, when he gets caught trying to get out of town, Trump tries to buy off the honest Ranger!

 Here's where I think the situation lies, the whole thing was made up, but when they put down their phony umbrellas, they should have got pelted with meteorites anyway for being so gullible!

I dunno, maybe this was really a TV show from 2043 projected back in time by some future civilization as a warning that we forgot to heed, or is it just a coincidence?! Either way, thanks to KD for the lead!
You can try and figure it out for yourself at either the Internet Archive or YouTube, the choice is yours!