The Great Houdini Broadcasts -Behind the Curtain of Episode 97

 

The Great Houdini Broadcasts was written by Val Andrews, and published by Micky Hades International back in 1981. It is a booklet made up of two Scripts. One takes place in 1926 immediately following the death of Houdini. The other script takes place 50 years later in 1976. I have to be honest, I have no idea why Val Andrews wrote this or what his intended purpose was. Perhaps he was writing a big of fiction, a short story, but why did he write it in script form?

Well, I can tell you it was the PERFECT thing for someone like me. I read it and thought it should be made into an old style radio show, EXACTLY how it was written. Perhaps that was Val's intention, I do not know. It also had a copyright. A standard copyright that is found in most books. I honestly was not sure if this prevented me from using the script or not. But I took the high road and contacted Micky Hades and was able to get a non commercial license through his son Brian.

If you listened to podcast episode 97, you'll hear my rendition. Seven very different voices: Radio Announcer, Lawyer Kelson (fictional), Conan Doyle, Hardeen, Horace Goldin, Harry Jansen, and Jay Palmer. Only the lawyer was a fictional character. I almost used Bernard Ernst instead, who was Houdini's real lawyer, but in the last minute I held back. ALL the dialog is fictional, though, it's about 98% historically accurate. And it's because of the truth of the history that I wanted to recreate this. 

If you listen close, Conan Doyle's voice is a combination of James Mason and John Houseman. Hardee's voice is a form of Luka Bratzy from the Godfather movie, but is close to how he really sounded. I wanted to replace Jay Palmer with Dai Vernon. I had this great segment that I wrote AS Vernon, but then I realized that my announcer voice was similar to my Vernon. My Dai Vernon is identical to Johnny Thompson's.  So I couldn't use Vernon. And then I discovered that Jay Palmer was a real magician who actually DID work for Houdini. And on top of it he was born in Nashville TN, so I gave him a Southern accent. It worked fine. 

There are no special effects, other than the static radio sound that plays during the entire story. I would like to have included some 1920s music, but I wasn't finding the stuff I wanted. As it was, one track did make it on the episode, but it's very faint and very short. I meant to pull it and forgot, lol. I hope if you haven't already done so, you'll go listen to the episode. 

My previous 'old style radio drama' was episode 72 of my podcast. That one was called "The Devil and Harry Kellar" and I wrote the entire thing, and did all the voices. That one has a totally different feel to it as it's more dramatic and theatrical. It includes sound effects as well. That story is totally fictional, however if you know anything about Harry Kellar, you'll recognize that the story is filled with TRUE events from his life. The story idea came to me from looking through his posters and it dawned on me, there was a whole story there to be told. 

I have been encouraged to do more of these. But as you might imagine, it isn't like there is a huge amount of these scripts laying around. In other words, I have to write them!!! I already have one written, and there is part of another that I started to write years ago. I suppose I could use those....in the future. For now, the podcast returns to straight magic history!

Carnegie The Magic Detective On The Radio

A couple weeks ago John Michael Marty of WSMI Radio out of Illinois interviewed me for his radio show. John and I were introduced through our mutual friend Steve Baker, known professionally as Mr. Escape. John contacted me about doing an interview where we would talk about Steve, and magic history, Houdini and my own professional performing career. We were supposed to do a 20 minute spot, but I think we ran around 45 minutes (including commercials). It was a fun interview and I thought you might like to listen to it.

Episode 2 of The Magic Detective Podcast is UP!

I'm really having a fun time with these podcasts. I just uploaded episode 2, and episode 3 is finished and will go this weekend. Episode 4 however is one that I'm REALLY excited about. This one has the first feature that was written specifically for the podcast and will also be a blog article. That is what I had hoped to do all along, use both mediums to complement each other.

In Episode 2, I share some Washington D.C. connections to Magic History. The 15 item list can be seen here. During the HOUDINI RADIO Segment, I share the story of where Houdini got the dog that he gave to The Great Lafayette. Of course, that dog, whom he called Beauty, would be Lafayette's companion for the rest of his life. If you'd like to read more about Lafayette & his dog Beauty, follow this link.

I'll be experimenting with the Interview feature next week, so hopefully by the time I get to episode 5 or 6, I'll be ready to conduct some awesome interviews. And WOW, do I ever have a list of people!!!! You probably know some of them, and you might even BE one of them, lol. And I expect to have quite a few people that maybe you've not heard of but have so much to share!

Personally, I have gathered a great deal of information that I have never used for the blog. Now, I'll finally get a chance to use it for the podcast. I have a couple of interviews I did with people who have since passed on, so those might be fun to include. In addition, I've got some wild ideas that I just can't reveal, yet.

There is one thing I'm very careful NOT to do, and that is reveal secrets. I'm very old school in that regard, so I won't be tipping any big secrets. I know there will be non-magicians listening to the podcast and I don't want to give away the farm, so to speak. I've done a pretty decent job of keeping secrets out of the blog all these years, with the exception of two incidents which are among the 700+ blog articles, so I guess they're safe.

PLEASE DO ME A FAVOR, if you like the podcast, please leave me a review, or comment, or a LIKE, depending upon where you listen to it. 5 star reviews are appreciated. Trust me, I'll be working hard to earn them! And if you're listening via iTunes, please subscribe to the podcast! Or go to, MagicDetectivePodcast.com