Astral Facts, October 2008

Astral: (Theosophy) Consisting of, belonging to, or designating, a kind of supersensible substance alleged to be next above the tangible world in refinement; as, astral spirits; astral bodies of persons; astral current.

Come With Us, If You Will, to the Days of …

My wife and I recently experienced something that hadn’t happened in a long time – we were part of the live audience at the recording of a radio drama.

Some of us can remember way back in the olden olden days (before not only cable TV but also reliable TV reception) when families would spend an evening together at home, in the park, at the summer cabin, etc. playing cards, putting together jigsaw puzzles, washing dishes, and even eating dinner while listening to the Lone Ranger, Jack Benny, Sgt. Preston, Chester A. Riley, and others deal with common and extraordinary situations of life.

Many of these old programs are available at a reasonable cost in MP3 format. For about $5 per disk, several seasons of such programs can be acquired. We have used these for years with our family, and our children turn on their boombox with MP3 compatibility and drift off to sleep at night listening to these programs (with the extra “G” ratings, the parents can sleep more peacefully as well!) The children and their parents’ favorites are The Aldrich Family, which covers the adolescent challenges of Henry Aldrich in small town America, and Our Miss Brooks, the situation comedy of a high school English teacher attracted to a shy biology teacher in a school run by the tyrant Osgood Conklin. They can relate to the struggles of Walter Denton, the goodhearted dunce boyfriend of Harriet Conklin, the school valedictorian.

We frequently purchase programs and episodes at http://www.otrcat.com/ where we can get about 40 episodes per disk (about 20 hours of listening for only $5!)

You can listen to a sample episode of the show here or download the file for listening later:

http://www.otrcat.com/miss-brooks-p-1701.html

Most of us may think the radio drama may have gone the way of the thingamajig used with the whatchmacallit, but a local group headed by Jim French, long time radio “disk jockey” in this area, has kept alive the art of the radio drama.

Attending a recording session is quite an experience. The sound effects team is right there on the stage, making those noises of feet walking on gravel, doors opening and closing, telephones ringing, etc. by actually walking on gravel, opening and closing doors, ringing telephones, etc. The actors and actresses read their lines and often stumble over them and then "take it from the top of page ..."

Jim French is the creator of the “Harry Nile” detective series, the adventures of a hard luck Seattle detective who has a big heart and a thin wallet. All the radio episodes were recorded in front of live audiences here in the Seattle area. In the past they were free admission at the Museum of History and Industry near the UW, but more recently the sessions have moved to the Kirkland Performing Arts Center on the eastside.

Several years ago, French and his company received permission from the estate of Sir Conan Doyle to do a few episodes and adaptations of The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. French said they envisioned possibly doing four or five such episodes before the permission ran out, but the recording session on October 6th was the 100th such episode! Usually two different half-hour programs (22 minutes of air time) are recorded at each session but for this session, they did a one-hour special Sherlock Holmes story recorded in two sessions.

Here is a link to that story, “The Two Watsons.”

http://jimfrenchproductions.com/itheater_shows/week657.m3u

As indicated by the label, such programs have been created and posted for 657 weeks (which equals to 20 years of such broadcasts!) According to the Imagination Theater webpage http://jimfrenchproductions.com/ http://harrynile.com/),

[T]hese shows began airing in Seattle, Washington in 1972, with performances by major Hollywood guest stars, including John Astin, Eddie Bracken, Hans Conreid, Bob Crane, Patty Duke, Russell Johnson (the Professor on Gilligan's Island), Kurt Kasznar, Ruta Lee, Roddy MacDowall, Richard Sanders (of WKRP in Cincinatti), Tom Smothers, and Keenan Wynn. National syndication began in 1996. This led to coveted media awards and honors by BBC Radio.

The next recording event will be on Monday, November 17th. Here’s more information:

http://www.kpcenter.org/cgi-bin/event.cgi?id=350

Walter Lowe

Astral Facts is a monthly presentation of Humanities Science, produced in the bowels of the Humanities Science offices.