It’s Ray Bradbury Month here at Fire-Breathing Dimetrodon Time! Over the next few weeks, we’ll be showing our kid some teleplays and adaptations from the pen of the greatest sci-fi writer in history, and Marie will be reading him some Bradbury with his goodnight routines. I suggested The Halloween Tree, but I think she’s going with From the Dust Returned. And isn’t it amazing that he’s ten and still wants Mom to read to him before bed? How amazing is that?
Anyway, speaking of dust, to kick things off, I dusted off our Twilight Zone DVDs and we rewatched the wonderful “I Sing the Body Electric.” He didn’t remember much about it (good grief, has it really been three years since we watched it the first time??) but he gave it his complete attention and really enjoyed it. When the two less jaded kids start choosing their new grandmother’s eyes and hair, he was enthralled. It’s such a simple scene, not done with any real pizzazz or special effects or anything, but the joy those kids were expressing was really contagious.
“I Sing the Body Electric” was very controversial with the writer. He didn’t like the rewrites and it took him many years to get a television adaptation done that met his approval. But I think Bradbury was letting his pride get in the way. The production for Twilight Zone was done very sympathetically and the whimsy and the fun of the story never overpowers the message of the fable: you may not have to have a heart to love. Your actions define you, not where you were built. It’s a very good little half hour.
Fire Breathing Dimetrodon Time 
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