The Electric Grandmother

The Electric Grandmother
The Electric Grandmother
Directed by	Noel Black
Screenplay by	Ray Bradbury; Jeff Kindley;
Based on	"I Sing the Body Electric"; by Ray Bradbury
Starring	Maureen Stapleton; Edward Herrmann; Paul Benedict; Tara Kennedy; Robert MacNaughton; Madeleine Sherwood;
Cinematography	Mike Fash
Edited by	Dennis M. O'Connor
Music by	John Morris
Production; company	Highgate Pictures
Distributed by	NBC; Coronet Video
Release date	January 17, 1982 (USA);
Running time	60 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Electric Grandmother is a television movie that originally aired January 17, 1982, on NBC as a 60-minute Project Peacock special,^[1] based on the 1969 science fiction short story "I Sing the Body Electric" by Ray Bradbury. It stars Maureen Stapleton and Edward Herrmann and was directed by Noel Black. Bradbury's story was originally written as a teleplay in 1962 as "I Sing the Body Electric", an episode of The Twilight Zone. The film was distributed on VHS by Coronet Video.

Plot

Widower Henry purchases an android built in the form of a grandmother as a surrogate to his three children, Tom, Timothy and Agatha. The two boys accept the gynoid grandmother but Agatha does not until she saves her life. When the children have grown up, and no longer need her, the grandmother returns to the factory where she was built and spends time with other electric grandmothers no longer needed. She is recalled to service to help the elderly Tom, Timothy and Agatha.

Cast

Maureen Stapleton as Grandmother
Edward Herrmann as Henry
Paul Benedict as Guido Fantoccini
Tara Kennedy as Agatha
Robert MacNaughton as Tom
Charlie Fields as Timothy
Madeleine Sherwood as Aunt Clara

Awards

The Electric Grandmother received an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Children's Program,^[2] and won a Peabody Award.^[3] It has been recognized by Chicago International Children's Film Festival, International Film Festival for Children and Youth, American Film Festival and the Southern California Motion Picture Council.^{[citation needed]} Additionally, 10-year-old actress Tara Kennedy^[4] was nominated for a Young Artist Award in the category Best Young Actress in a Movie Made for Television.^[2]

Reviews

"Devotees of science fiction of any age, in school classes or public library programs, will find it a fascinating interpretation of Bradbury's fiction." — School Library Journal^[5]

Popular culture and other versions

Washington DC musical duo The Electric Grandmother took their name from the film.^[6]^[7]^[8]

The 1987 telemovie Elektroninė senelė [lt] (Electronic Grandmother), also based on the Ray Bradbury story, aired on Central Television in Russia. Directed by Algimantas Puipa, it starred Lithuanian actress Ingeborga Dapkūnaitė in the lead role.^[9]

References

^ ^a ^b "The Electric Grandmother". AllRovi. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
^ ^a ^b "The Electric Grandmother (1982) (TV) - Awards". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
^ "Peabody Award | George Foster Peabody Awards". Peabody Awards. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
^ "Tara Kennedy - IMDb". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved May 16, 2013.
^ Buchanan, Gerald (September 1982). "Literature & Drama". School Library Journal. 29 (1): 55.
^ "The Electric Grandmother - Discogs". Discogs. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
^ "The Electric Grandmother - All Music". AllMusic. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
^ "The Electric Grandmother - Pop Matters". Retrieved April 23, 2021.
^ Soviet Life. Embassy of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in the USA. 1987. p. 7-PA54. Retrieved January 7, 2024.

External links

The Electric Grandmother at IMDb
The Electric Grandmother at Phoenix Learning Group, successor to Highgate

This article related to an American TV movie is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This 1980s science fiction film–related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[AllRovi-1] "The Electric Grandmother". AllRovi. Retrieved May 16, 2013.

[IMDB_Award_List-2] "The Electric Grandmother (1982) (TV) - Awards". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved May 16, 2013.

[3] "Peabody Award | George Foster Peabody Awards". Peabody Awards. Retrieved May 16, 2013.

[4] "Tara Kennedy - IMDb". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved May 16, 2013.

[5] Buchanan, Gerald (September 1982). "Literature & Drama". School Library Journal. 29 (1): 55.

[6] "The Electric Grandmother - Discogs". Discogs. Retrieved April 23, 2021.

[7] "The Electric Grandmother - All Music". AllMusic. Retrieved April 23, 2021.

[8] "The Electric Grandmother - Pop Matters". Retrieved April 23, 2021.

[9] Soviet Life. Embassy of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics in the USA. 1987. p. 7-PA54. Retrieved January 7, 2024.

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v t e Ray Bradbury
Bibliography (Short fiction)
Novels	The Martian Chronicles (1950) Fahrenheit 451 (1953) Dandelion Wine (1957) Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) The Halloween Tree (1972) Death Is a Lonely Business (1985) A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990) Green Shadows, White Whale (1992) From the Dust Returned (2001) Let's All Kill Constance (2002) Farewell Summer (2006)
Short stories	"Hollerbochen's Dilemma" (1938) "The Scythe" (1943) "I, Rocket" (1944) "The Lake" (1944) "Frost and Fire" (1946) "The Million Year Picnic" (1946) "The Small Assassin" (1946) "I See You Never" (1947) "Fever Dream" (1948) "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl" (1948) "The Long Years" (1948) "Mars Is Heaven!" (1948) "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" (1949) "The Exiles" (1949) "Marionettes, Inc." (1949) "The Long Rain" (1950) "The Rocket" (1950) "There Will Come Soft Rains" (1950) "The Veldt" (1950) "Ylla" (1950) "Embroidery" (1951) "The Fog Horn" (1951) "Here There Be Tygers" (1951) "The Pedestrian" (1951) "The April Witch" (1952) "A Sound of Thunder" (1952) "The Wilderness" (1952) "The Flying Machine" (1953) "The Golden Kite, the Silver Wind" (1953) "The Meadow" (1953) "The Murderer" (1953) "Sun and Shadow" (1953) "All Summer in a Day" (1954) "The Dragon" (1955) "The Aqueduct" (1979) "Banshee" (1984) "The Toynbee Convector" (1984) "Is That You, Herb?" (2003)
Collections	Dark Carnival (1947) The Illustrated Man (1951) The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953) The October Country (1955) A Medicine for Melancholy (1959) The Day It Rained Forever (1959) The Small Assassin (1962) R Is for Rocket (1962) The Machineries of Joy (1964) The Vintage Bradbury (1965) S Is for Space (1966) Twice 22 (1966) I Sing the Body Electric! (1969) Ray Bradbury (1975) Long After Midnight (1976) The Fog Horn & Other Stories (1979) The Last Circus and the Electrocution (1980) The Stories of Ray Bradbury (1980) The Fog Horn and Other Stories (1980) Dinosaur Tales (1983) A Memory of Murder (1984) The Toynbee Convector (1988) Classic Stories 1 (1990) Classic Stories 2 (1990) The Parrot Who Met Papa (1991) Selected from Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed (1991) Quicker Than the Eye (1996) Driving Blind (1997) Ray Bradbury Collected Short Stories (2001) One More for the Road (2002) Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (2003) The Cat's Pajamas: Stories (2004) A Sound of Thunder and Other Stories (2005) The Dragon Who Ate His Tail (2007) Summer Morning, Summer Night (2007) A Pleasure to Burn (2010) The Collected Stories of Ray Bradbury (2011, 2014)
Plays	The Meadow (1947) The Flying Machine: A One-Act Play for Three Men (1953) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit and Other Plays (1972) Pillar of Fire and Other Plays (1975) The Martian Chronicles (1986) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1986) Fahrenheit 451 (1986) Dandelion Wine (1988) The Veldt (1988)
Adaptations	It Came from Outer Space (1953) Moby Dick (1956 screenplay) "I Sing the Body Electric" (1962) The Autumn People (1965) Tomorrow Midnight (1966) Fahrenheit 451 (1966) The Picasso Summer (1969) The Illustrated Man (1969) The Martian Chronicles (1980 miniseries) The Electric Grandmother (1982) Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) Bradbury 13 (radio series, 1983–84) Fahrenheit 451 (1984) "The Burning Man" (1985) The Veldt (1987) The Ray Bradbury Theater (TV series, 1985–86, 1988-1992) The Halloween Tree (1993) Dandelion Wine (1997) The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit (1998) A Sound of Thunder (2005) Ray Bradbury's Chrysalis (2008) The Whispers (2015) Fahrenheit 451 (2018)
Miscellaneous	Futuria Fantasia (1939–1940) The Mummies of Guanajuato (1978) Zen in the Art of Writing (1990) It Came from Outer Space (2003 book)
Characters	Guy Montag
Related	Bettina F. Bradbury (daughter) Spaceship Earth Ray Bradbury Center Bradbury Landing Ray Bradbury Award Fuck Me, Ray Bradbury Dandelion crater "Treehouse of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes"