Browse by Artist: FOUNTAIN, JUDSON

Artist:	FOUNTAIN, JUDSON
Title:	Completely In The Dark
Label:	INNOVA
Format:	CDR
Price:	$13.00
Catalog #:	INNO 200CD

[deleted] "First-ever CD release of 'The Ed Wood, Jr.' of radio drama. Original radio dramas (1969-1974) produced, written and directed by Judson Fountain. Produced by Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon. Before TV captured the nation's attention, radio was the most popular form of home entertainment. Nowadays that box offers mostly music, news, and backtalk, but from the 1920s through the '40s, the airwaves boasted drama, comedy, and murder mysteries. Judson Fountain (b. 1952) grew up after the heyday of classic radio theater, but as a child heard vestiges of programs that had enthralled his parents. He developed an obsession with suspense-filled shows like The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, and Lights Out!. While most Americans were evolving into couch potatoes, Judson embraced radio as the superior theatrical medium, and felt compelled to single-handedly revive the art. That he lacked training, technology, skilled staff and a budget did not deter him. Ed Wood, Jr. made movies; Judson produced radio dramas. Judson was between 17 and 22 when he produced these extremely primitive affairs. His simple, derivative plotlines employ Halloween kitsch -- spooks, witches, haunted houses -- as vehicles in morality plays about redemption for the honorable and damnation for evil-doers. Judson's work was characterized by cliché scripting, egregious ethnic accents, and inept editing -- all seasoned with copious needle-drops of creaking doors and howling wolves from the timeless Elektra Sound Effects Library. But this extreme amateurishness and unwavering sincerity synergize to great advantage in Fountain's theatricals. There is charm in the clumsiness, and befuddled amusement in the often-abrupt plot twists. Over the past decade, Judson's recordings have circulated among collectors of the bizarre, and in the process have attracted a cult following." CDR release.

Previous Page Index of Artists Next Page