I’d never seen a real Mark Time Award until Joe Mahoney (CBC Radio Producer and the wizard behind both Steve The First and Steve The Second) posted this image to his Flickr account. Check it out:
Cool huh? Joe wrote this story about it on his blog too.
The OTR Plot Spot has, in honour of Canada Day (July 1st) posted three retro radio dramas. The first is one segment of a WWII era series called Nazi Eyes On Canada which you can read the review for HERE. The second and third are two tales from the 1980s. One is from the series Nightfall and is called “Future Fear” and the other is from the series Vanishing Point with a story entitled “Meteor.” You can click on over to the The OTR Plot Spot’s Listening Booth HERE to grab the MP3s.
And we wish a happy, belated, Canada Day to Canadians from all nations.
CBC Radio producer Joe Mahoney has just posted some interesting radio drama related tid-bits about two upcoming CBC Radio One series:
“Last Friday we finished whipping the J. Michael Strazcynski (JMS) piece The Adventures of Apocalypse Al into shape. Greg DeClute and I spent the entire week with JMS and Samm Barnes fine tuning the edit and the sound effects assembly. We’ll actually mix it next week some time. Apparently it will air over the summer, but I don’t know exactly when yet.”
Joe also writes about a follow up to the two successful Matt Watts’ series Steve, The First and Steve, The Second. It will be called Canadia. Cast details can be found in the same post which you can find on Joe’s blog.
Way back in 2004 we brought you the news that J. Michael Straczynski had sold a series to CBC Radio. We’ve been patiently waiting two years and nothing has come of it… until today!
Last weekend, JMS was seen in the CBC Toronto studios with his Jeremiah cohort Sara (Samm) Barnes, producing the first batch of twenty 5 minute episodes of his new radio drama The Adventures of Apocalypse Al. The lead role is being voiced by Canadian TV star Cynthia Dale. We’ve been informed that further details will likely show up in recorded TV interview set to air on Space: The Imagination Station (Canada’s version of The SciFi Channel) during the Hypaspace program tommorow afternoon (Sunday February 19th).
In the meantime check out this 50 second preview video by clicking HERE ( Windows Media Player format).
UPDATE: Joe Mahoney, CBC Radio producer and friend to SF&F audio fans worldwide, points out that his blog AssortedNonsense.com has pictures of the recording session! Check them out THERE, along with his posts or peek at his Flickr account directly.
Hurry quick! Head on over to the premiere resource for Science Fiction and Fantasy OTR – The OTR Plot Spot and check out this week’s LISTENING BOOTH. There you’ll find all the three parts of The Word for World is Forest by Urusla K. LeGuin in two mp3 files. This version is terrific, it was originally produced by CBC Radio for the long running Science Fiction series Vanishing Point.
The Word for World is Forest
By Ursula K. LeGuin; Dramatized by Alberto Manguel
2 MP3 Files – Approx 90 Minutes [RADIO DRAMA]
Broadcaster: CBC Radio / Vanishing Point
Broadcast: March 1989
“The seemingly simple natives of a world blanketed in forest resent the arrogance of human interlopers, and the contempt they show for the local ecology. All the natives need is a leader strong enough and clever enough to match wits with their human exploiters…. Based on a novel by Ursula K. le Guin.”
WARNING: Easily embarrassed? Take heed, there’s a stunning difference between this series and the OTR of the 1950s. First there’s the spotlight on the evils of manifest destiny, social Darwinism, ecological strip mining, genocide, rape and miscegenation. Second, there is a complete absence of censorship, The Word for World is Forest contains sounds (urination), concepts (“hygenic homsexuality”) and more even unthinkable – language straight from the book!
This past season we’ve had about a dozen inquiries about Johnny Chase, Secret Agent of Space the late 1970s early 1980s CBC Radio Drama series. We suspect this is mostly due to it airing on the XM Radio’s Sonic Theater channel 163 recently – which is sadly only available in the USA. More unfortuantely the series is no longer available to Sonic Theater, at least in the forseeable future, and no CD or cassette editions of the 79 episode series have been known to have been manufactured. Unlike many USA Science Fiction OTR series like X-Minus One, Johnny Chase is not in the public domain in either Canada or the USA. So what is a Johnny Chase fan to do? Well, we’ve got some contacts at CBC and we’d be happy to pass along any petition to make the show available on CD. If you’re interested in spearheading this petition, or just want to be informed when we get more info you can reply to this post with your contact details and we’ll keep you apprised of the Johnny Chase situation.
FYI: You can make your email relatively safe from spammers by turning your @ symbol into something else. For instance my email address is: [email protected]. But if I want to avoid becoming inundated with spam I can post it like this: jessewillis*yahoo.com.