{"id":30296,"date":"2021-12-18T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2021-12-18T06:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/?p=30296"},"modified":"2021-12-17T15:33:37","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T21:33:37","slug":"audio-drama-review-mutural-radio-theater-volume-1-week-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/audio-drama-review-mutural-radio-theater-volume-1-week-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Audio Drama Review: Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1, Week Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the third part of our review of Radio Archives’ Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1 <\/a>covering the third week of the series. For a look at an overview of the set, see the first week review<\/a>.\u00a0 Also see week two<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Oh Really, No O\u2019Reilly<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/span><\/i>In a Western town that\u2019s dying out since the railroad came through Denver, a crooked saloonkeeper and a dishonest undertaker engage a corrupt insurance salesman to take out a policy on a drunk drifter named O\u2019Reilly when plans to poison him and collect the insurance money. That becomes a lot harder than they think. Golden Age Stars: Tyler McVey, Daws Butler, Marvin Miller, Don Diamond, Barney Phillips, and Howard Culver<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Review: This was based on a true story that was the basis of many stories including the 1955 Johnny Dollar serial \u201cThe Indestructible Mike Matter.\u201d The story is hit and miss as a dark comedy but really does turn in a few very good plot twists at the end. Grade: B-<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The First National Radio Aptitude Tes<\/strong>t. An on-air radio aptitude quiz is conducted with some interesting answers.\u00a0 Golden Age Stars: Alan Young, Marvin Miller, Daws Butler, Lillian Buyeff, Mary Jane Croft, Shepard Menken, Don Diamond, and Jerry Hausner<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a bit different. Andy Griffith gives a monologue about radio, its history, and the golden age of radio. I did have to chuckle when Griffin said he wouldn\u2019t say anything about those headsets being worn by joggers and young people and wondered what he\u2019d say to our modern world\u2019s ubiquitous all-ages use of earbuds. He then sends the show over to a radio quiz master (Young) who provides a wacky quiz while receiving constant interruptions.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to like. There are some funny jokes and if you\u2019re a fan of the golden age of radio, there\u2019s a boatload of talent from the era represented in this little production.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On the other hand, this is a production that tries to overwhelm you with jokes, a lot of which don\u2019t hit. There\u2019s a Groucho Marx\/<\/span>You Bet Your Life <\/span><\/i>parody that goes on too long. In addition, there\u2019s a lack of logic. It was decided they wanted to include parodies of old time radio shows and poke fun at collectors, so without explanation they stop the quiz and do that.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, this was entertaining. It plays well to nostalgia, has some funny bits, but could have been better. Grade: B<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Mask:<\/strong> A businessman\/art collector steals an old, sinister-looking mask from Africa with a bad reputation. He gets home and finds that reputation is deserved. Golden Age Star: Ben Wright<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is an odd one, honestly. The businessman and a corrupt local official steal the mask and then the official is hospitalized with serious burns when his stove blows up and the businessman\u2019s family start having minor fire-related injuries.\u00a0Than\u00a0the story has a twist…that\u2019s almost absurd, but I think gives it a\u00a0<\/span>Twilight Zone\u00a0<\/span><\/i>feel to it. It does have some interesting turns, but there are also some flaws in the story logic. Still, it wasn\u2019t a bad listen. Grade: B-<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For the Love of Laura:<\/strong> An actress and party girl frequently proposes marriage but never follows through until she asks herself who she\u2019d really like to marry. Golden Age Stars: Janet Waldo, Shepard Menken,\u00a0 Barney Phillips, and Vic Perrin.\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Janet Waldo does as good a job with the material as anyone could and the same can be said of all the actors. That said, Laura is just not a likeable character. The whole of the story is a combination of Laura leading men on, and imagining how good\/how bad it might be to be married to each one.\u00a0 She remains self-absorbed and shallow and strings each of these men along while she made up her mind. I will say she does show some character growth. She\u2019s still shallow by the end, but not nearly as shallow as when she started. She\u2019s self-absorbed but without being as foolish about it.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I also think there are too many guys in the story. She has five beaus: a smart guy, a weightlifter, a golfer, her agent, and a guy who looks good but whose chief personality trait is breaking out a racist joke whenever there\u2019s a lull in the conversion. Each time she remembers or fantasizes about one of them, she has to do it with each of them in turn. With so many male characters, they end up as shallow as her. If people wanted that much shallowness, they could just watch TV. Grade: C-<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yes, Sir, That\u2019s My Baby<\/strong>: More than a thousand years in the future, a couple are permitted by their government to get married and when they get a family-sized housing unit, they think the government is going to let them have a baby. They hope to be given a pink or blue card for their new baby. Instead, they\u2019re horrified to draw a yellow card and find the extra room is designated for a seventy-five-year-old man who was cryogenically frozen in 1975 after having a near-fatal heart attack. Golden Age Stars: Herb\u00a0Vigran, Marvin Miller<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This story deals with the idea of over-population, which was a huge environmental concern of the 1970s and 1980s. But I have to give writer Elliott Lewis credit for taking a different tact than many writers of the era. He doesn\u2019t imagine some environmental cataclysm that wipes out the human race or humans going into space. He imagines humans continuing to find ways to survive until every inch of the planet is claimed and filled, the human population is in the trillions and has a powerful computer-led government running everyone\u2019s lives, approving decisions to get married, where they can live, and how much food they\u2019re given. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The government that runs the plan does horrible things but is assured of it own beneficence, even stating so after having made a mistake that ruins this young couple\u2019s life.\u00a0 Whether you agree with or like Lewis\u2019 setup, it was strikingly different. Of course, the radio program does dance around some of the ethical implications of this society. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And it manages to get away with it because it acknowledges some broader human themes it chooses to explore through this world that manage to work. Herb Vigran is great as the man who finds himself more than a millennium out of time, awakened by Earth\u2019s government because they need him for some purpose they don\u2019t tell him. The character\u2019s humanity pushes against a bureaucratic world. The character is very likable even as he makes questionable choices.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The story also raises questions about the wisdom of cryogenic freezing, as it shows serious downsides with a little bit of upside at the end.<\/span><\/p>\n

I do question its inclusion for a Friday program. Given its focus on having a baby, love, and relationships, this doesn\u2019t fit with much with the \u201cAdventure\u201d theme Fridays were supposed to offer. Given a Sci-fi Comedy was played by comedy day, this might been a better fit on Thursday’s love day.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, this merits a grade: B+<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Our series will conclude on January 1st<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the third part of our review of Radio Archives’ Mutual Radio Theater, Volume 1 covering the third week of the series. For a look at an overview of the set, see the first week review.\u00a0 Also see week two. Oh Really, No O\u2019Reilly:\u00a0In a Western town that\u2019s dying out since the railroad came…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[132,123],"tags":[3049,409,2177,8,533],"class_list":["post-30296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-drama-review","category-golden-age-article","tag-anthology","tag-audio-drama","tag-audio-drama-review","tag-detective-story","tag-mixed-review"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pECdK-7SE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30296"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30296\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30390,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30296\/revisions\/30390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}