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103: Spotlight - My Dad

John S. Drew's picture
October 7, 2010 - 6:29am — John S. Drew

Sorry for the personal stuff, but I hope you enjoyed the audio drama selections.  Let me know what you think here and don't forget to rate the episode here.

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October 9, 2010 - 11:08am — KevinLauderdale

That was a great change of pace

John, that was really touching, and an excellent tribute to your father.  And we got to hear two top-notch radio dramas.  I'm fortunate in that my local public radio station WAMU plays four hours of Old Time Radio every Sunday, and they usually start include "Gunsmoke."  Nice work.

October 8, 2010 - 9:27pm — Andrea K Lipinski (not verified)

Star Trek = Wagon Train to the Stars

It's always eye-opening to realize how much we are like our parents, in spite of our convictions that we're not.

Nicely done, John.

October 9, 2010 - 11:16am — KevinLauderdale

Gene always said that, but . . .

As a die-hard Trek fan I feel justified in criticizing Gene in this one aspect.  He always said that he pitched Star Trek as Wagon Train to the Stars, but it very much isn't.  WT was about the slow trip Out West, and all the adventures the members had as they were separated from "civilization".  If anything, Battlestar Galactica was Wagon Train to the Stars. Star Trek was about going out, seeing what was there, and coming back.  Not a continuous trek from A to B.

October 16, 2010 - 5:26pm — krad
krad's picture

that's how he pitched it...

...to network executives who only understood Western metaphors because that was what was hot on TV at the time. What he actually wrote was "Horatio Hornblower in space," but if he pitched that to NBC, they would've scratched their heads and asked what TV show Hornblower was on.

 

—

Keith R.A. DeCandido | keith@decandido.net | DeCandido.net | kradical.livejournal.com | Facebook.com/kradec | @KRADeC on Twitter

"Even when you turn your back, you're still facing something."

October 7, 2010 - 8:54pm — Pinkhamster
Pinkhamster's picture

Probably the best episode of the Rift podcast.

By which I don't mean to give short shrift to all of the Rift crew who weren't on this one.  But this was very emotionally affecting.  The story of your dad choosing to go to the Western film and the consequences he faced for it and how you will be continuing the tradition.  It gave such meaning to the two episodes you played.

The Gunsmoke episode surprised me in how dark it was, with so many of the townspeople being portrayed as cruel and bloodthirsty.  Dillon is even shown as being verbally cruel to people who don't deserve it, and his rightful disgust at his ex-lover's cruel desire to see the German farmer killed for the sake of her reputation in the town is very very dark stuff.  This is darker than most of the TV shows I see these days where there hero has to be a lot more likable than this -- I don't even think Dexter, the serial-killer TV show, is this morally cloudy.  I liked it a lot.

Thanks for sharing this with us.  You communicated the pains and pleasures of being alive and dying with complexity and beauty.

October 8, 2010 - 5:56am — John S. Drew
John S. Drew's picture

Thanks

I was worried I might go too far and make this too personal.  I also thought I was rambling a little as I'm not entirely sure I was ready to do this.

Yes, audio dramas tended to be much darker than television fare back in the fifties and sixties.  They could get away with it as you weren't visually seeing what was going on and one didn't have to be worried about being typecast as much on radio as they did on television.

—

John
Creator, Producer, All Around God-Like Being
"What?  Too much?"

October 8, 2010 - 6:17am — Pinkhamster
Pinkhamster's picture

Wasn't either of those things for me.

(Wasn't too personal or rambling.)  I haven't gone through this experience you've gone through yet, but I know it will obviously come and your story helped me to think about doing what you recommended, valuing the time while I have it.

In other news, I just noticed that the TV version of "Have Gun, Will Travel" did the same story, "Hey Boy's Revenge," and the whole thing is on YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=envDze_IsF8

I didn't watch more than a minute or two, but from what I could tell the radio version was much better, with the imagination giving the story more life.  (I guess the TV version had a leg up in one area: an Asian-American actor played Hey Boy on that one, while the radio version was played by a caucasian Brit.)

October 17, 2010 - 12:37pm — CaptainPatch
CaptainPatch's picture

Tribute

John, This was a beautiful tribute to your father.  Thanks for sharing that with us.

Bill

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