My interview with radio fan, "Human"

I am honored today by having "Human" on my blog.  His radio tastes are completely different than yesterday's guest, "Boston Blackie."

I don't know "Human" as well as I know "Boston Blackie" so my questions are kind of straight-laced. 

Here's the Q&A we did last week:

 
OTR Buffet: Please tell us a little something about you and your history of old-time radio. How did it all begin for you?

"Human": When I was growing up in the early '70s, my parents, especially my mom, would tell me and my sister about listening to the radio when they were kids in the '30s and '40s. I remember specifically a Sunday afternoon when I was about nine or ten years old and a little bit under the weather. I was staying quiet in my room and decided to turn the radio on. It was tuned to a local AM radio station that was celebrating its 50th anniversary by playing some vintage radio shows that it had aired back in the "golden age". I remember hearing "Duffy's Tavern," "The Great Gildersleeve", "Big Town", "Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy", "Buck Rogers," "Inner Sanctum" and "Quiet Please". Throughout the afternoon, they kept running promos for a new dramatic series that would premiere the following week called "CBS Radio Mystery Theater". I became a regular CBSRMT listener from then until I went away to college in the fall of 1982. I caught the last handful of episodes when I came home for Christmas break.

During my growing up years, I also listened to Sears Radio Theater, which came on the hour before CBSRMT during its run. When I was in high school, I discovered two local listener supported FM stations that played vintage OTR like "Gunsmoke" (I still get a chuckle out of visualizing the morbidly obese William Conrad as Matt Dillon), "Escape", "Suspense", "X-Minus One", and "The Jello Program, starring Jack Benny," as well as some contemporary stuff like "Nightfall", "The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy", "A Canticle for Liebowitz," "Bradbury 13," and NPR's adaptations of the "Star Wars" movies. So, from about 1974-1982, when OTR was supposedly dead, I was listening to it on the air for up to two hours a day!

I kind of drifted away from OTR when I was in college up until about seven or eight years ago, although I was a big fan of books on tape during most of the intervening time.

Peter Lorre

One funny thing, when I was in college, I picked up a cassette of Peter Lorre doing "The Black Cat" in an episode "Mystery in the Air". I pulled it out at a couple of Halloween parties and it was a big hit. Several years later, there was a very friendly black cat that lived a few doors down from me, who would come and hang out at my house, especially when I was grilling chicken. Somewhere along the line, I started calling him "Pluto," after the cat in the Poe story and talking to him in a Peter Lorre voice. It got to the point that he wouldn't respond to me unless I did my Peter Lorre impression, calling him "Pluuuuuuuuto, the blaaaack caaat wit de toarn eah" (bad phonetic impression of Peter Lorre there). I think his real name was something boring like "Whiskers", but he seemed to enjoy having an alternate persona.

OTR Buffet: Wow, that was a great Peter Lorre impression via text!

What shows keep you going today (listening-wise)?

"Human": My all time favorites are CBSRMT, Suspense, and Hitchhikers' Guide, but these days I'm listening to a lot of contemporary British shows. Radio is still a vibrant and viable art form over there.

OTR Buffet: What are your favorite OTR Comedies?

"Human": I don't really listen much to comedies, although I guess Hitchhikers' Guide would probably count. I think Douglas Adams was one of the greatest social satirists of our time. He's up there with Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift.

Vincent Price (The Saint)

That said, I do like Moran & Mack's "Two Black Crows". They weren't a radio duo per se, they were a vaudeville stage act that also recorded records in the 1920s and paved the way for Amos 'n' Andy.

I also occasionally listen to Prairie Home Companion.

OTR Buffet: What are your least favorite Comedies?

That's kind of hard to answer because I'm not that big of a comedy fan to begin with.

OTR Buffet: What are your favorite OTR Mysteries?

"Human":  Well, who doesn't like Sherlock Holmes? I also like CBSRMT, Suspense, and Escape. Vincent Price was brilliant as Simon Templar in "The Saint," quite different from Roger Moore's portrayal of the character on TV. I also like "Mystery in the Air", which was a short run series starring Peter Lorre. The stories are drawn from classic literature and are very well done.

OTR Buffet: Least favorite Mysteries?

"Human": I've never really heard any I totally dislike.

OTR Buffet: What are your favorite OTR Westerns and why?

"Human": I'm not a big Western fan, but I do occasionally like to listen to Gunsmoke, mainly because I remember watching the TV series when I was a little kid.

OTR Buffet: What are your favorite OTR Science Fiction shows?

"Human": Well, as you might have guessed from my earlier responses, I'm a big science fiction fan. You can probably guess Hitchhikers' Guide is high on the list, but so are X-Minus One, Dimension-X, and the excellent British series Journey into Space. There is also an excellent series from the late '70s called Alien Worlds that has great story lines and rich soundscapes. I also really like the Twilight Zone radio series. Stacy Keach brings a gravitas to the narrator role that is different from that of Rod Serling, but very appealing in its own way. The Doctor Who and Torchwood radio shows the BBC is doing these days are really good, too.

OTR Buffet: Least favorite Sci-Fi?

"Human": I'm really not into the '50s kiddie shows like Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. I take my sci fi pretty seriously (I know that'll sound like an oxymoron to some people) and I don't really consider that kiddie stuff to be real sci fi.

OTR Buffet: You are quite an esoteric OTR devotee. I notice a leaning towards a lot British shows. Tell me, did you, like I, get wrapped up in Monty Python, The Two Ronnies and those kind of TV shows in the 1970's as well?

"Human": I wasn't all that big of a Monty Python fan at the time, although I've come to appreciate them more in recent years. Back in the day, I was absolutely addicted to a comedy show called Dave Allen At Large. The show starred Irish comedian Dave Allen and mixed sketch comedy, mostly filmed on location, with Dave's stand-up routines, which were actually more sit-down as he told his jokes seated on a bar stool that had a small table attached to it for his glass of whisky and his ashtray. This show seems to have completely dropped off the face of the earth shortly before VCR's became commonplace and to my knowledge, it's never been released commercially in any format. People I mention this show to either loved it or they never heard of it.

A few months ago, I found some DVD's at the public library of a show called "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" that has a similar vibe to Dave Allen. It stars Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie of "Jeeves and Wooster" fame. Hugh Laurie, of course, is starring these days in "House, M.D.," which I'm not really fond of.

And for what it's worth, I absolutely detest Benny Hill.

OTR Buffet: Yeah Benny Hill is just garbage.  I really can't understand anyone liking that show!   Do you have any favorite few series that may not fit into the above categories?

"Human": Well, you ignored the entire genre of horror. Granted, a lot of CBSRMT, Suspense, and Escape fall into that category, but Vincent Price's "The Price of Fear" deserves mention.

Another genre that isn't covered here is adventure shows. I'd have to list Voyage of the Scarlet Queen to that list and right now, I'm listening to a BBC production of The Horatio Hornblower Story. They're very well done adaptations from C.S. Forrester's Hornblower novels. Interestingly, they manage to make each episode a self contained story drawn from a chapter or two of a novel. Orson Welles' "The Lives of Harry Lime" is also very good.

I also like literary series like the Mercury Theater.

OTR Buffet: The Price of Fear is a great show.   I think it was done in the 1960's.   And for some reason, I tend to lump Horror, and Adventure together with Sci-Fi.    I know that's ridiculous but...   What show do you wish you had more of to listen to?

"Human": I wish there were more of Douglas Adams' material available, but alas, he left us way too early and pretty much all of his fiction has been made into radio shows. I also wish there were more than 12 episodes of Mystery in the Air, but that said, I have also come to appreciate the beauty of a limited series from listening to British shows.

OT Buffet: Do you enjoy OTR as much as televsion?

"Human": I enjoy them equally, although it's much easier to multitask while listening to OTR.

OTR Buffet: How many hours a day and week do you listen to OTR? Do you have a listening schedule or is it just random?

"Human": I usually listen to a half-hour episode when I'm going to sleep at night. Sometimes I listen to other times, so maybe up to four or five hours a week, more when I take a road trip.

OTR Buffet: By what primary means do you listen to your OTR?

"Human": I listen primarily on my iPod (4th gen 20GB) with headphones in bed or through a hard wired FM modulator in the car. I also occasionally stream shows on the computer.

Fred Gwynne

OTR Buffet: Please tell me who the best actor and actress in OTR is and why? Memories of him and her?

"Human": One of the first radio actors who caught my ear as a kid was Fred Gwynne because I recognized the voice of Herman Munster. Peter Lorre and Vincent Price also have distinctive voices that I enjoy, as does Orson Welles.

OTR Buffet: Fred Gwynne had a great, deep voice. I'll bet he was a fine singer.

Is there anything else you'd like to say?

"Human": One observation I will make is that I think the younger generation has lost the ability to listen to OTR and that's unfortunate. I played a CBSRMT episode for my niece and nephew a few years ago and they both lost interest within about two minutes. I teach a community college course called "Technology and Society", and when we get to the unit on mass communication, I have them listen to OTR episodes for homework and play the Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast in class. The students almost universally report having difficulty following the story without the visual element present. That's sad and more than a little disturbing.

OTR Buffet:  I really appreciate "Human" doing this interview with me.  I hope you all enjoyed this as much as I did.

©Jimbo 2010/2011