The Arch Oboler Plays show serves up a doozy and the Society has a lot to say about “The Day Sinatra Got Fat”! Obloer’s macabre sense of humor indulges in a truly bizarre tale of aliens, pigs, and a strange green powder. Does the callous rich couple in the story deserve their terrible fate? Is there such a thing as a pig cave? Would you like to visit Utah? Listen for yourself and find out! Then vote and let us know what you think and if you think we should perform “The Day Sinatra Got Fat” live:
Wow, this is a very special episode. Yes. Yes, special. I couldn’t help but picture Felicia as, um, a public figure who shall, for the sake of propriety, remain nameless. (I think it was the accent.)
On another note, did you keep saying “ionized yeast” Instead of “ironized yeast?” Because I’m not entirely sure how one would go about ionizing yeast. (I’m assuming that ironized yeast just has, well, iron mixed in.) But maybe the giant hand aliens know how to ionize yeast, and that is indeed what they slop the humans with.
I know I’m guilty of saying ionized when I meant ironized. I don’t have an excuse really. Midwestern dialect getting lazy with “R”s? Sure, I’ll say that.
I’m the one who is guilty of saying “ionized”. I was hoping nobody would notice. I used to listen to Lights Out all the time as a kid and the combination of childhood ignorance and poor sound quality convinced me it was “ionized”. I also thought Credence Clearwater Revival was informing me “there was a bathroom on the right.” Those memories from childhood are hard to shake, even in my stupid middle-age.
Heh. That works, too, but I’m just going to go with, the aliens ionized it in a super-secret facility in Utah. Because that makes as much sense as anything else in this story.
Besides, retconning via headcanon is fun, and more likely to earn a no-prize.
Hey I’m posting my first comment! Until this very minute I thought it was Ionized Yeast. So…
I discovered your podcast a couple of weeks ago (via a comment on Reddit) and have been working my way up from the first episode. This one was a hoot! I wonder if Old Blue Eyes ever heard it back in the day.
I just listened to this episode (I learned of the podcast at your old-radio-horror panel at CONvergence this summer, and I’ve been listening to the new episodes every week since then, and gradually working my way through the older episodes), and Wow. I can’t even vote on it — none of your usual categories really apply. I think I can say with certainty, however, that this is the best story about snowbound unlikable rich people being fattened by green extraterrestrial dust that I’ve ever heard.
Listening to this was a chore. It was a five minute story stretched into, what sixteen to eighteen minutes? At the end as the music was playing, I’m thinking “OK, they’ll have some really good points to turn this around and make me at least respect it”, and, no. The only redeeming thing is galactus eating the earth because it apparently should die.
One thing of interest, I thought of Spirited Away, a much better version of this story which I can watch many times with no issues (no alien hands need apply).
Also, better story about gluttony – The Appetite of Mr Lucraft. It’s more contemporary and just plain weird as opposed to scary.
We interrupt this classy speculative fiction tale to bring you a public service announcement from the Church of Latter Day Saints.