Skeleton story
A hypochondriac contacts a “bone specialist” to get rid of his skeleton. Directed by: Steve DiMarco. Story by: Ray Bradbury.
8 total · 2 choice · 3 major · 3 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| hypochondria | choice | The story turns on Bert Harris, a hypochondriac, growing increasingly worried that something might be seriously wrong with his entire skeleton. |
| obsession | choice | Bert became obsessed with his own skeleton. |
| collecting objects | major | Dr. Munigant collected skeletons and was not above persuading the week-minded to willingly let him extract theirs, leaving them as amorphous blobs. [human bones] |
| husband and wife | major | Bert's wife, Clarisse, expressed concern when he came home with a full body X-ray image of his own skeleton. The story concludes with Clarisse discovering her husbands de-boned amorphous body oozing on the floor. |
| medical occupation | major | Fed up with Bert's litany of imagined complaints, Dr. Burleigh lit up a cigarette and sent Bert on his way. It was then that Bert turned to the eccentric osteopath Dr. Munigant ("he of the extraordinary cures") for a second opinion. |
| creative writing | minor | In the introduction, Ray Bradbury shared with the viewer the wellsprings of creativity that inspire his writing. |
| gluttony | minor | A fat man in the bar wax poetically on his love for ice cream, pie, banana fritters, and Monte Cristo sandwiches dripping in butter. |
| the nature of creativity | minor | In his introduction, Ray Bradbury gave his viewers an intimate window into his writing room, and some of the self-professed sources of creativity that lay about within it. |