To parahprase All the President’s Men, it isn’t what Mr. Coleman did, it was How he did it.

Also, we don’t need to apologize or try to excuse sexism in the past. The opening was very sexist and demeaning to female authors and creators. I appreciate Eric, Tim, and Joshua for calling out that bs.

Insightful as always, Mr. Potts. You’re quickly becoming an honorary co-host!

I understand your quibble with the logic behind the monster’s wrath, but it didn’t jump out at me. It’s one of the benefits of being so familiar with the story. I think the listener unconsciously fills in certain gaps.

You raise a good point about Mr. Coleman’s introduction. I listened to it again and that’s absolutely what he was doing – building up to the big reveal of the name of the story.

I’ll play devil’s advocate to your last point though. Wouldn’t creating a sterile bride only delay the inevitable? At the time this novel was written, children were an expected outcome of marriage. I think the monster’s request for a companion included the implicit desire for a family. When procreation proved impossible, the monster would return to Frankenstein just as angry as before. Not only that, he’d have another angry monster at his side!

(To clarify, in case you have any international listeners, I meant “pissed” in the U.S. sense of “angry”, not in the U.K. sense of “drunk” — although the thought of Frankenstein’s Monster drunkenly posting comments on social media is also amusing to me.)

One more comment: At the end, when Frankenstein warns the listener, “Above all things, do not say my name — for the sound of the syllables ‘Frankenstein’ makes the anger rise in the monster’s brain,” it made me imagine that all of the comments on social media to the effect of “Actually, Frankenstein was the name of the doctor” might in fact have been made by Frankenstein’s monster, and he’s pissed.

Regarding Ronald Coleman’s introduction and the lack of an immediate identification of Mary Shelley, I interpreted this differently than you. Yes, when he says “strangely enough, it was written by a woman,” it reflects the sexism of the time (and when I heard this, I laughingly thought something along the lines of “Gasp! A woman!”), but when he says “the wife of one of the greatest poets of our language” before he has ever identified her by name, I did not take this as a sexist dig against Mary Shelley. I interpreted this as providing clues for the listener to identify the story before Coleman reveals it: (1) it’s “probably the most startling tale of horror ever dreamed upon this planet” (which is arguable, but the superlative does indicate that it’s presumably something famous enough for the audience to recognize); (2) “it was written by a woman”; and (3) “the wife of one of the greatest poets of our language”. That these hints were supposed to be sufficient for identification is made evident by the next sentence starting with “Yes”: “Yes, before the minute hand of your watch completes its next half-circle, you’re coming face-to-face with Frankenstein’s monster.” He then identifies it as “Mary Shelley’s ghastly adventure of Doctor Frankenstein.” (Now, if he had said “Percy Shelley’s wife’s ghastly adventure…,” THAT would have been sexist.)

To continue on the topic of Coleman’s intro: I thought the joke about Jack Benny was extremely funny — so much so that when Eric called it “a terribly unnecessary shot at Jack Benny,” I actually said out loud, “No, it wasn’t!” Fortunately, I was alone at the time.

And on the topic of jokes, I didn’t mind the mid-program joking about Percy and Mary Shelley writing. I didn’t think it was particularly entertaining, but it didn’t irritate me the way it did Tim. And it’s worth remembering that this would have come at the end of a commercial break, so it wasn’t as if they interrupted the story just to make a feeble joke — and I didn’t find it anywhere near as intrusive as Harlow Wilcox and Hap with their allegedly humorous discussions of Autolite products.

On a more critical note — which I can’t blame on this adaptation, so I’m not holding this against it — in listening to this, it reminded me of the main criticism I have of Shelley’s novel: When the monster demands a mate, Frankenstein initially goes along with it, then rebels and destroys his work when he considers the prospect of the creatures breeding a race of superhuman monstrosities — thus dooming his own bride and anyone else who cares for him. Frankenstein could have saved himself a lot of grief if he had just thought to assemble a female creature with no uterus or ovaries.

You’re welcome. We’ve found the OTR community amazingly friendly and supportive. It’s a pleasure to share that support with other OTR enthusiasts. Thank you for the great recommendation!

I totally missed the Coleman/Benny connection. Thanks for pointing it out.