CBS Radio Mystery Theater Offers Worst and Best Back to Back

Edgar Allan Poe

I'm slowly working my way through (and slowly savoring) each episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theater.

It just so happens that I listened to one of the worst and one of the best (so far) back to back.

Nearly unbearable: "Conspiracy to Defraud," about an American narcotics cop in France. Maybe an attempt to be "The French Connection," sans grit, Popeye Doyle, and car chases.

http://www.cbsrmt.com/episode-33-conspiracy-to-defraud.html➚

Outstanding: "Deadly Hour." Very Edgar Allan Poe-ish, it is one of the few radio dramas that truly gripped me, had me hanging on almost every word, and gave a subtly gruesome and satisfying conclusion that was perfectly timed; it has many hallmarks of "The Tell-Tale Heart," and in some ways it may actually be better.

http://www.cbsrmt.com/episode-34-the-deadly-hour.html➚

(The person or people behind CBSRMT.com have done an outstanding job, so I'll just link to their summaries and streams; however, I listen to these episodes without any preview and research the people myself, so any overlap is coincidental. Their recordings may be different than the ones at archive.org but I suspect they are mostly the same.)

Something even more interesting: Some of the episodes I'm listening to include 6 minutes or so of news at the beginning: Nixon, Watergate, Patty Hearst, Vietnam - all reported matter-of-factly, without the judgement or perspective that time affords, and since they are not repackaged for a modern audience, they are left totally to the listener to interpret.[1]

A local story got me interested: Two women shot at 33rd and Troost in Kansas City (http://g.co/maps/jbqee): 30-year-old June Oglesby of 2139 East 15th in Kansas City, who had gunshot wounds to the chest and stomach, and Kay Sue Hammond of 5814 Olive, Kansas City, who had gunshot wounds to the pelvis and right leg. Oglesby was reported in critical condition and Hammond was in fair condition. A suspect was in custody but his/her identity not released.

I tried to learn more, but the few minutes I spent with names and places didn't turn up anything. I was surprised that they reported the full names and addresses of the victims, but 40 years later those small details connect us with a past that wouldn't be same without them. With the magic of Google I can walk along 33rd and Troost, which looks very secluded today, and wonder what led up to those events, how long they waited for help, and who arrived and when and what happened after. I'm sure it's all stored on paper in Kansas City's basement, but it will one day be online along with every other historical detail, searchable with a word or keystroke.


[1]
There is nothing worse than listening to someone package the past and present it as a comedic or sardonic look at our shared bad taste. It was difficult to listen to Mo Rocca, for example, expound on the 1970s on VH1's "I love" series; Mo is great on NPR's "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" but he or whoever wrote his segments obviously didn't understand the decade well enough to share it with those that weren't there.

It's too easy when looking back to be critical. We make fun of 70's bell bottoms and the teased hair of the 80's because we don't have anything intelligent to say, not because those things deserve criticism. There's a website, which I think is appalling, which features portraits from past decades of mostly unattractive or uncomfortable people in awkward shots - yearbooks, proms, weddings, families, etc. Someone actually brought this up on a projector while we waited for a meeting to start at work (this was a long time ago), and everyone guffawed around the table at the mullets and wide lapels and crooked smiles.

I looked around the table at who was laughing: they had been the cool kids in high school - quick with a joke, popular, athletic, smart (and likeable, nice people today) - all good things to be sure. I looked back at the screen as someone clicked through the pages. Each photo subject had dressed up for those pictures, gotten a new haircut or style. They may have spent a lot of money and time coordinating their clothes and the photographer, and some of them, God bless them, just couldn't please the camera no matter the angle or lighting.

I felt sorry for those folks in the pictures, even if they might have laughed at themselves, because we should not have laughed at them, and in fact, I didn't, and asked that we stop the show, which my coworkers did, through perplexed scowls, as though we were at the theater and I'd said we'd run out of pop corn.