Happy Halloween! We’re celebrating this spooky time of year by listening to ghost stories. Aimee Pavy from Twelve Chimes It’s Midnight recommended this one, “Good Ghost” by Wyllis Cooper from Quiet Please. Thanks, Aimee! It’s the story of an everyday sort of guy who suffers a wrongful death, but he’s in no rush to become a vengeful spirit. Why would he want to help out his murderer? Is there a limit to his patience and good nature? How awkward would Hogan’s Heroes be without a laugh track? Listen for yourself and find out! Then vote and let us know what you think!
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I can’t believe you guys weren’t totally on board with this one! Quiet Please had so many episodes tinged with comedy – Not Enough Time, Don’t Tell Me About Halloween, One For the Book, Kill Me Again, etc. that it shouldn’t seem like a novelty. I know the scary ones are great but I’ve always found THOSE ones to be the exception to the rule. For every Fourble Board, Is This Murder?, and Whence Came You? there’s one that, if not outright comedic, is at least fairly lighthearted. To me, Quiet Please is a fantasy show, not strictly a horror… Read more »
Thanks, guys. I really wanted to feel sad today. Oh, well. haha
This was a great episode and you guys did a fantastic job!
I feel that Paul Bae’s The Big Loop is in some ways a contemporary successor to Quiet Please. A single-writer anthology series with a variety of genres, including sci-fi, dark comedy, and a “Fourble Board” kind of horror story (“All God’s Children”). All are acutely dramatic and personal tales of the “super normal” (to use a phrase from Wyllis Cooper’s Lights Out successor), related by one or two voices.
https://www.thebiglooppodcast.com/
Thanks for the Big Loop tip…just subscribed!
I loved your commentary on this one! I particularly love this episode because it sounds like Damon Runyon wrote a ghost story, but so Cooper. Damon Runyon writes urban fairytales/moral stories and often features dopey, sweet characters that are too nice. I agree with Joshua (or was that Tim?)…I love the conversation between the Gus and Schuster in the looney bin. I realized too that I duplicated a bit of the gag-in-the-mouth dialog in the short “Midnight Meditation”…didn’t do that consciously, but “Good Ghost” must have been haunting my subconscious while writing that one. Thanks again guys for another FANTASTIC… Read more »
A podcast about golden age radio comedy is something I’ve considered doing too. It’s interesting to me how much funnier the studio audience considers most of the gags I hear on those shows than I do. Also, some jokes need explanation for a modern audience who may not know that, say, a particular punchline is a reference to the movie “Seven Keys to Baldpate.” I think Fred Allen’s humor, especially as it comes through in his ad-libs, is the old-time radio humor that has best stood the test of time.
Ultimately I decided against it because of the sheer quantity of research involved. It’s still on my bucket list though. I agree about Fred Allen. I know it’s sacrilege to some, but I’ve always liked his show better than Jack Benny’s. And that’s saying a lot, because I really like Jack Benny!
The “King for a Day” sketch and the scene with Fred & Jack that precedes it is one of the funniest things I’ve heard on radio. I was glad to hear “King for a Day” featured as part of the Allen-Benny feud on Breaking Walls’ Fred Allen episode, #81.
Christian: I spent a year or two listening to every episode of the Jack Benny show in existence. And you are a Fred Allen fan. We must battle someday.
I have no idea why I liked this as much as I did.
Love love love love this. You didn’t even mention how full of exceedingly specific Chicago references this is. So great. Thank you.