| The Ray Bradbury Theater | |
|---|---|
| Format | Fantasy, Science fiction, Drama |
| Created by | Ray Bradbury |
| Starring | Ray Bradbury, miscellaneous special guests |
| Country of origin | Canada United States New Zealand France |
| No. of seasons | 6 |
| No. of episodes | 65 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 23 to 28 min. |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | HBO (seasons 1-2) USA Network (seasons 3-6) |
| Original run | 1985 – 1992 |
The Ray Bradbury Theater is an anthology series that ran for two seasons on HBO, three episodes per season from 1985 to 1986, and four additional seasons on USA Network from 1988 to 1992. It was later shown in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel. All 65 episodes were written by Ray Bradbury and many were based on short stories or novels he had written, including "A Sound of Thunder", "Marionettes, Inc.", "Banshee", "The Playground", "Mars is Heaven", "Usher II", "The Jar", "The Long Rain", "The Veldt", "The Small Assassin", "The Pedestrian", "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl, "Here There Be Tygers", "The Toynbee Convector", and "Sun and Shadow".
Many of the episodes focused on only one of Bradbury's original works. However, Bradbury occasionally included elements from his other works. "Marionettes, Inc." featured Fantoccini, a character from "I Sing the Body Electric!". "Gotcha!" included an opening sequence taken from "The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair." Characters were renamed, and elements added to the original works to expand the story to 23-28 minutes or to better suit the television medium.
Each episode would begin with a shot of Bradbury in his office, gazing over mementos of his life, which he states (in narrative) are used to spark ideas for stories. During the first season, Bradbury sometimes appeared on-screen in brief vignettes introducing the story. During the second season, Bradbury provided the opening narration with no specific embellishment concerning the episode. During the third season, a foreshortened version of the narration was used and Bradbury would add specific comments relevant to the episode presented. During the fourth and later seasons, a slightly shorter generic narration was used with no additional comments.
Famous actors appearing in the series included James Coco, William Shatner, Peter O'Toole, Patrick Macnee, Jeff Goldblum, Drew Barrymore, Hal Linden, Michael Ironside, Robert Vaughn, Eugene Levy, Saul Rubinek, Donald Pleasence, Denholm Elliott, David Ogden Stiers, John Saxon, Harold Gould, Bruce Weitz, Barry Morse, Eddie Albert, David Carradine, Sally Kellerman, Vincent Gardenia, Robert Culp, Shawn Ashmore, Richard Benjamin, John Vernon, Elliott Gould, Tyne Daly, Lucy Lawless, Jean Stapleton, Marc Singer, Michael Hurst, Louise Fletcher, Magali Noël, John Glover, Howard Hesseman, and Shelley Duvall.
Echo Bridge Home Entertainment released the entire series on DVD In Region 1 on January 11, 2005.[1]The 5-disc DVD set features all 65 episodes of the series.
Echo Bridge also released 2 single disc volumes on January 2, 2007, each volume features 13 episodes.
On May 31, 2011, Alliance Home Entertainment will release The Ray Bradbury Theater: The Complete Collection on DVD in Canada only for the very first time.[2] There was no Episode Listing with this set, so here is the episode listing: Disc 1 The Crowd The Emissary To The Chicago Abyss The Pedestrian Banshee The Screaming Woman Skeleton Gotcha
Disc 2 The Man Upstairs The Small Assassin The Haunting of the New The Town Where No One Got Off Marionettes Inc. The Playground The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl.
Disc 3 The Wind A Sound of Thunder The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone Hail and Farewell Touched With Fire Here There Be Tygers Touch of Petulance The Black Ferris The Long Years Exorcism Mars is Heaven The Murderer Usher II
Disc 4 The Toynbee Convector The Day It Rained Forever And the Moon Be Still as Bright The Earthmen Zero Hour Colonel Stonesteel and “The Desperate Empties” The Concrete Mixer The Jar The Utterly Perfect Murder The Martian Let’s Play Poison The Dead Man The Happiness Machine
Disc 5 The Lonely One The Long Rain The Anthem Sprinters Fee Fie Foe Fum Downward From Gettysburg By The Numbers The Tombstone Tomorrow’s Child Silent Towns Some Live Like Lazarus Sun And Shadow Great Wide World Over There The Handl
Disc 6 Punishment Without Crime On The Orient, North The Coffin Tyrannosaurus REx There Was An Old Woman The Dwarf A Miracle of Rare Device The Lake The Veldt Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms In Your Cellar!