# ID a short story... Bradbury? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 24, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048 "2012-12-24T20:43:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048/1 "2012-12-24T20:43:59Z")
I’ve exhausted my googling ability on this one, since every attempt to find a Bradbury story about television lands on “The Pedestrian” (IMHO, one of the most black and brilliant prognostications ever written). The story I am trying to locate, though, and which I am reasonably sure is another RB work, is where the miner comes into town after several months in the desert and discovers that television has been wiped from the face of the earth by some kind of cosmic radiation event. People are being forced to talk to one another and it’s dangerous to mention that TV ever existed. ID, please? ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2012, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048/2 "2012-12-24T21:20:06Z")
There’s a certain amount of resemblance to the short story “The Waveries” by Fredric Brown: [http://jennre.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/the-waverlies-fredric-brown-1945/](http://jennre.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/the-waverlies-fredric-brown-1945/) Unless you’re really misremembering things though, this isn’t it. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048/3 "2012-12-25T00:23:14Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > I’ve exhausted my googling ability on this one, since every attempt to find a Bradbury story about television lands on “The Pedestrian” (IMHO, one of the most black and brilliant prognostications ever written). > > The story I am trying to locate, though, and which I am reasonably sure is another RB work, is where the miner comes into town after several months in the desert and discovers that television has been wiped from the face of the earth by some kind of cosmic radiation event. People are being forced to talk to one another and it’s dangerous to mention that TV ever existed. > > ID, please? You know it’s annoying trying to find SF stories about television, because search engines inevitably bring back SF stories on television. That being said, this story does sound vaguely familiar. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048/4 "2012-12-25T00:27:46Z")
There was a novel called “The Day The Televisions Stopped” [http://www.amazon.com/The-Day-Televisions-Stopped-Sutton/dp/0151239940](http://www.amazon.com/The-Day-Televisions-Stopped-Sutton/dp/0151239940) ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2012, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048/5 "2012-12-25T00:42:02Z")
Possibly “The Night the TV Went Out” by George O. Smith? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2012, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048/6 "2012-12-29T21:39:56Z")
Well, no thanks to Dopers - fail! fail! - another source pointed me to “Almost the End of the World,” by RB, which is the story I was looking for. Thanks for playing, better luck next time. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048/7 "2012-12-30T14:42:07Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Well, no thanks to Dopers - fail! fail! - another source pointed me to “Almost the End of the World,” by RB, which is the story I was looking for. > > Thanks for playing, better luck next time. 🙂 Sorry about that. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048/8 "2012-12-30T17:22:48Z")
Meant entirely in good humor - I’ve had two fails and so many instant answers I’ve lost count of them. (I’ve literally had answers in the time it took me to refresh the page.) Funny that this one missed, though, given Bradbury’s popularity in this crowd. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2012, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/id-a-short-story-bradbury/645048/9 "2012-12-30T22:10:28Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Meant entirely in good humor - I’ve had two fails and so many instant answers I’ve lost count of them. (I’ve literally had answers in the time it took me to refresh the page.) Funny that this one missed, though, given Bradbury’s popularity in this crowd. He _is_ pretty popular in this crowd. Not quite as popular as with [this](http://vimeo.com/14351915) young lady, of course…