An Anthology Series hosted by Ray Bradbury based on his works that featured many actors such as Michael Copeman, Frank Whitten, Wayne Robson, Harold Gould, John Bach, Shelley Duvall, Richard Kiley, Donald Pleasence, among others.
It ran for six seasons, first season on HBO before it spent the rest of its run on USA Network.
Tropes for the series:
- Alliterative Name:
- Ricardo Reyes (Gregory Sierra) in Sun and Shadow.
- Mary Morris (Sally Kirkland) in Zero Hour.
- Character Title: The Ray Bradbury Theater.
- The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone.
- Colonel Stonesteel and the Desperate Empties.
- The Host: Ray Bradbury.
- Maintain the Lie: The episode "The Tonybee Convector" has reporter Roger Shumway coming to talk to the revered 130 year old Craig Bennett Stiles. A century earlier, Stiles had traveled into the future and returned with videos of a utopian world. This would inspire the entire world to match his view and in 2100, the world is a peaceful planet with little crime or disease and a well-kept environment. After decades of silence, Stiles is about to grant an interview on the day his past self appears in the skies. The time comes... and nothing happens. Stiles reveals to Shumway that the entire thing was a massive hoax. The "time machine" was literally smoke and mirrors. The video he showed was actually the best parts of the world of 2000. The entire "journey" was Stiles' desperate attempt to correct humanity's self-destruction by making the world believe in a future that they would end up creating for real. Stiles says he had prepared to take the "time ship" arriving in the future but has decided to simply tell the world the truth. Shumway is upset the "golden age" was built on a lie with Stiles saying it was needed. He ends up passing away and Shumway sharing Stiles' message of hoping for the future. Shumway then sets off Stiles' secondary hoax which is passed off as an "orbital shift". He then destroys the evidence Stiles gave him, agreeing it's better the world believe in Stiles' lie.
- No Mercy for Murderers: "Punishment Without Crime", a particularly egregious example, a man finds his wife having an affair behind his back. He goes to a company that can create an android facsimile of his wife, and arrange to "kill" her. However, in order to do the work, they need to have him put into a sleep state while the android is created. He wakes, and is confronted with the android of his adulterous spouse, and decides he doesn't want to kill her after all. But the android insists, saying that being killed by him is her sole duty and function, and that she cannot be at ease until he does. At last, he gives in and kills the android. Only to find that during the time he was "asleep", new laws were passed to bestow human rights on the android, and the government officers were waiting to arrest him, rather than halt the scenario as it played out. He is sentenced to death for his crime, despite the fact that he never killed another human being, and the government could have intervened and halted the scenario before the murder played out.
- One-Word Title:
- Banshee.
- Skeleton.
- Gotcha!.
- Exorcism.
