Sat 28 Oct 2006
This week we have a predictably Halloween-themed episode, featuring scary sound effects such as the eerie sound of earthmoving equipment from next door.
Not to mention:
* Slither.
* Movie monsters.
* Donald Sutherland’s scary 1970s movies, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Don’t Look Now.
* Japanese ghost stories.
* And some spine-chilling Bob’s Yer Uncle! radio theatre.
October 30th, 2006 at 1:22 am
My Comments:
–Congratulations on reaching episode #50! I’m surprised there wasn’t more fanfare about it (or any fanfare for that matter).
–The funniest moment was when Jana identified the drain goo as the narrator rather than the husband.
–Zan, I sent you an e-mail saying that that story was from Epic Illustrated and even provided you with this link to the publication’s Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Illustrated
–Two of my favorite horror movies that didn’t get a mention are “House” and “Donnie Darko”. You really must check them out this Halloween if you haven’t seen them already.
–This time it was Zan rather than Jana who did a funny misreading of the text, saying “vicious snake” rather than “viscous snake”.
–When Jana said to keep those voicemails coming, I had to laugh. Surely she didn’t mean me. You’ve already got the three I left for the previous episode.
October 31st, 2006 at 6:23 am
Excellent radio theater! And great Cryptkeeper voice, Zan. I felt like I was right there witnessing a murder.
I think ghosts are the most scary movie monster around, mostly because they have the best chance of being real. Logically, the others can’t exist, but who knows, you might run into a ghost one day. There’s a lot more people who believe in ghosts than believe in werewolves. And everyone knows the last vampires were killed off a few years ago. Although for my personal movie monster viewing enjoyment, I prefer a good Dracula over the Mummy, Frankenstein and the rest. But maybe I was too swayed by Martin Landau’s performance as Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood. (”Dracula requires presence. It’s all in the eyes, and the voice, and the hands…) And zombies are always the easiest to create a splatterfest with a core of social commentary, which is always a good thing.
*adds Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Don’t Look Now to Netflix queue*
October 31st, 2006 at 9:08 am
David Banda’s mother died shortly after childbirth, and I read in the paper that the baby - aged 13 months - “had not had a visitor at his orphanage for over a year”.
So, what makes the father who abandonned him think that David Banda would ever want to come back and work in the fields?
The point is moot, anyway. The life expectancy in Malawi is 37.08 years for men, so his Dad probably isn’t going to be there when David Banda is 18. I’m with Madonna over this.
To horror: having bent over with a mobile phone in my top pocket somewhat the worse for wear, only to see my phone vanish into a toilet as it flushed, I can say I have tried to get my hand round the bend.
It is surprisingly narrow - I couldn’t get my hand very far in. So my question is, how could Jana’s head be squeezed so much that it could get round the bend, but she was still able to talk and scream? I think we should see the pictures! Can you publish this episode’s comic strip?
November 1st, 2006 at 3:27 am
One thing that didn’t come through very well in the radio play was that the woman’s bones were crushed and snapped by the shit monster to make her fit. That still doesn’t explain her head, but her voice had been lowered to a murmur in the final flushing panel (as evidenced by the tiny lettering in her word balloon).
November 3rd, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Hi Z&J!
I just finished the episode. First, I guess I have an acutely dirty mind, because I noticed that Jana said, “Oh yeah, oh yeah, it’s so hard,” early in the show, then an animated “Oh God!” during the radio theater, and wondered if I should edit them together for some perverse use.
OK, with purer thoughts in mind, I wanted to mention that here in the hated US, we do indeed have Christmas in the shops at the end of September. It wasn’t so in the 70s, at least here in the northeast, but it has crept inexorably backwards in my lifetime. It’s really ridiculous (especially having worked in a mall for a few years recently) the sudden switch after our summer ends and the winter decorations and fashions are displayed, but that’s what we’re stuck with. The shops don’t really make much of Halloween or Thanksgiving, since they aren’t gift-giving holidays. The supermarket and the drug store (AKA pharmacy, or chemist’s) do Halloween displays, because they sell the candy.
Nice show! I enjoyed it a lot. I still have to re-listen to the previous show, and the knocks against Amero-/Euro-/humano-liberalism and the sacred canon of Star Trek, to try and understand what the hell Zan is getting at during TTAD.
-V
November 3rd, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Can I change my mind re comment #3 above? In photos Madonna’s adopted son David (age one) seems to already have become a Kabbalah devotee and is wearing the red string wristband.