Since the demise of Aerial View on March 18 I've been making older programs available as MP3 archives. Currently, shows from Fall of 1993 are featured. When I began digitizing old airchecks I tried to keep the archive date and current date aligned. A show dated May '93 would be available May '05, for instance - it didn't work out that way. There's a gap in the fossil record and until I chase down all cassettes from the "early years", the archives will be out of step. Listening last night - as I converted the cassette into an MP3 - I discovered it's refreshing to hear the callers and I reference November and Thanksgiving on a hot June day.
The archive available now is one of my favorite shows ever. Titled Civil War Sitcom, it began as a quiz show: I ask if anyone knows why November 19 is a famous date in American history. Once someone guesses it was the date of the Gettysburg Address, we piggy-back on the whole Ken Burns-PBS-Civil War series to imagine a half-hour comedy set during the same era. During the course of the show I welcome people into my "Hollywood Hot Tub Think Tank" to flesh out a pilot episode. Suggested titles include Southern Belles and Whistlin' Dixie. During the mayhem Ken Freedman drops into Studio A at some point. Listen for these callers:
- James Marshall, aka "The Hound", who suggest Andersonville Prison as a setting
- Tom Scharpling, who calls 4 or 5 times with casting and plot suggestions (I keep hanging up on him - I didn't know it was you, buddy!)
- Singer-Songwriter Paula Carino, who suggests a theme song
- Jim Ryan, cartoonist and WFMU stalwart
- The Vanilla Bean, explaining why he might be late to the studio (he was filling in for William Berger)
Other things to listen for include a mention of Pseu Braun's close personal friend Crispin Glover and newly-minted Tony Award-winner Bill Irwin. Jim Teemer's notes for the program appear here.
This is great! Will there be mp3 archives of other talk shows?
Posted by: Ploni | June 12, 2005 at 12:59 PM
Ploni - There are MP3 archives of ALL shows on WFMU, regardless of whether they are talk or music shows. You can see the archive links here.
There are 15 FMU shows which are podcast, such as Aerial View. you can get the lowdown on that here.
-ken
Posted by: Station Manager Ken | June 12, 2005 at 08:58 PM