Showing posts with label Radio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Radio. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 7, 2023

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!

Monday, July 1, 2019

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.


Sunday, November 15, 2015

Radio Interview: Houdini and the Spirits w/ The Houdini Brothers!


Ok, I say 'Houdini Brothers' jokingly, but it was great fun. John Cox and I appeared on the same show tonight, Jeff Richards: Paranormal. We were interviewed about Houdini and his Crusade Against The Spiritualists. It was a really enjoyable interview. The host did a fantastic job splitting up the questions and he came to the show knowledgeable about the subject matter. John Cox as you know runs the WildAboutHoudini.com blog site. And Dean Carnegie, well, he has a lil blog about magic history somewhere, lol.

If you missed it or weren't in Canada listening in. HERE is a link to the interview!
You'll want to pick the Nov 15th, 2015 link http://cjme.com/on-demand/jeff-richards%3A-paranormal

#HOUDINI

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Hear The Magic Detective On The Air!


On Sunday, Nov15th at 8pm (cst)  yours truly, Carnegie The Magic Detective, will be interviewed on the Jeff Richards: Paranormal Radio Show out of Edmonton Canada. I'll be talking about HOUDINI. I'm looking forward to it. It will be on 650 CKOM, or 980 CJME and I've been told there will be a podcast replay, so I will be sure to post the podcast for all those not in Canada or not able to listen to the original broadcast. This is my second Canadian interview this year!

Monday, January 19, 2015

Listen To My Radio Interview on Houdini, Magic History and more


Just wrapped up two hours of discussing magic history, HOUDINI, and then we also talked about me :)   It was really fun. This was on SpacedOutRadio.com. You can listen to the replay here

I even do a card trick during the final thirty minutes of the show, so if you listen, get a deck of cards and try it along with the replay! The host, Jim Tyson, really did his homework and it's clear he is also a big fan of magic. By the way, here is a little bit of behind the scenes...so SpacedOutRadio is a radio show devoted to the Unusual, the Paranormal, Ghosts, UFOs and that kind of thing. Well because I was going to be interviewed for 2 hours, I made sure to take some notes on things to talk about in case I needed it. 35 minutes into the interview (I think it was 35 minutes), the power went out in my home. I'm on my cell phone, so it's not problem, but I'm also in the dark, so no access to notes. It's all 100% memory. Which turned out just fine. But I couldn't help but think about the 'ghost' thing for a second....the power almost NEVER goes out and it wasn't even storming! Strange.

I plugged everything I could think of during the show. I mentioned the touring shows, Masters of Illusion and the three ILLUSIONISTS productions. I mentioned the Copperfield Theatre at the MGM and even Criss Angel's shows in Vegas. I also mentioned the various TV shows dedicated to magic. I felt like the magic ambassador last night. Oh, and I plugged my own theatre show as well.
The interview must have had some pretty strong airplay because I just noticed the numbers on a couple of my websites shooting through the roof!


Tuesday, January 13, 2015

The Magic Detective on the Radio This Weekend!


This Sunday, January 18th at 10pm PST, 1am East Coast Time, I'll be interviewed by Jim Tyson for Spaced Out Radio. We'll be talking Magic History and probably a lot about Houdini. The good news is it will be available to listen to online after the initial broadcast.

Spaced Out Radio is a new online radio show dealing with the unknown. It's part of Blogtalkradio.com programming. You can find them at http://www.spacedoutradio.com