Galileo Radio Theater (a lost 1980 audio drama series)

Here’s an intriguing magazine ad from Galaxy Science Fiction magazine’s final issue (July 1980):

And here’s the text from the ad:

The Martians have landed in New Jersey.

It might sound absurd today, but in 1938 it drove thousands of people into a panic when they thought Orson Welles’ radio production of War of the Worlds was an on-the-spot newscast. But that’s the power of radio drama, and Galileo has recaptured that power with a new series of radio shows taken from the pages of today’s liveliest science fiction magazine. Return with us now to the thrilling days of … TOMORROW! You can hear these thrilling shows even before they reach the radio stations. Galileo magazine is offering tape cassettes of the series for direct sale. Hear the new golden age of radio when you
want, as many times as you want. with no commercial interruptions. Series one includes three shows offered here for the first time anywhere. They are actual productions, not dramatic readings, produced and performed by The Open Book theater company in New York. they are professional dramas based on the best science fiction from Galileo magazine.

NOW AVAILABLE:
.”Due Process” by D.C. Poyer
-follows the Supreme Court trial of a man accused of stealing a sentient computer. But who is to say if it was theft or liberation?

·”Take My Planet-Please” by D.L. Borengasser
-in which a washed-up comedian is abducted by extraterrestrials. What hope is there for an old joke to span the gulf between man and an alien?

·”Calling Shapes and Beckoning Shadows” by Eugene Potter.
-the tale of an athlete’s search for himself in a bicycle race on the Moon. at four hundred miles per hour.

Does anybody know if the second series was produced? Or if it was ever actually broadcast? Does anybody have a copy of either cassette?

I’d never heard a whisper about Galileo Radio Theater before today.

[thanks Mike]

Posted by Jesse Willis