Lothar reconvenes the Amigos for another session of Sonic Echo and science fiction with the limited series "Beyond Tomorrow" and the episode "The Outer Limit"!
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Sonic Echo: 603 Sci Fi: Beyond Tomorrow- The Outer Limit(072824)
[MUSIC PLAYING] This episode is brought to you by Experian. Are you paying for subscriptions you don't use, but can't find the time or energy to cancel them? Experian could cancel unwanted subscriptions for you, saving you an average of $270 per year, and plenty of time. Download the Experian app. Results will vary. Not all subscriptions are eligible. Savings are not guaranteed. Paid membership with connected payment account required. Showcase Sundays today on the Mutual Audio Network. The following audio drama is rated PG for parental guidance recommended. Sonic Echo. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome back to Sonic Echo, where we explore the best in old-time radio. We're continuing our season on science fiction. I'm Lothar Tuppen, and today I'll be going beyond tomorrow with my co-host Jeff billard. It's a doll, baby. And our other co-host, Jack Ward. How you doing, Jack? You've been lost for a week. We don't accept you coming in. I don't know what the actual phrase was, but it's just that this guy calls in on this simple little frequency that only is used by this like, no, you're not. He's been gone for four days. It can't be you. I'm like, what? What? Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself, but that was probably the killness. That little bit of teaser from Jack was because our show tonight is from a very odd little show called Beyond Tomorrow. It aired on NBC in 1950 for three episodes, according to some people. Some people think it never aired, and it was only transcribed to disk. But it sounds like it was aired. It sounds like people were there. So maybe someone who is more of a Beyond Tomorrow expert can clarify for us. But between the old-time radio encyclopedia, Wikipedia, and some other websites, there's all sorts of conflicting information about Beyond Tomorrow. But it was only three episodes. And the one that we're going to be listening to tonight is one that was written by-- it was a short story by Graham Dorr called The Outer Limit. And it was originally published in Saturday evening post on December 24 of 1949. And it was adapted into a radio play a number of times, supposedly the first time for Beyond Tomorrow. And then, again, on, let's see, dimension X, suspense, X minus 1, and escape all had variations, sometimes with the same actors even. So that'll be interesting to see. But this was a show that was only going for three episodes because, for whatever reason, the funding or something fell out underneath it. And NBC was launching dimension X at around the same time. And dimension X took off. Beyond Tomorrow did not. But for those of you that are sci-fi fans, John Campbell is the guy who was sort of the show runner for this. And he wrote the story who goes there that turned into the movie the Thing, both versions of the Thing, including the John Carpenter one. So that's kind of an interesting approach. Wasn't he also-- wasn't he also-- John Campbell wasn't he also an editor of Five Five at the time? Yes. Yeah, he was. And that's why he was brought in to be sort of the show runner for this, you know, as before. And when we're not aired or not, we should say that when it comes to this show, anything is possible and possibly may happen to you. To you, yes. Which was the intro they had for that. Yes, when we get on the other side, I'll have some interesting things to say about that intro. But Jeff, what were your initial thoughts and anything you want to say before we start the show? Yeah, thanks, Lothar. I really enjoyed listening to it. I've heard it before. I know Jack sent it to me. We were talking about maybe doing it at one point. I'm going to guess it was the X minus one version that I listened to. That was really great. And so when I first started listening to this, I was like, I've heard this before. But I haven't heard this before. You know, and so it took me a while to think, oh, this is the one Jack sent me. But I liked it. I thought it was great. I mean, I thought the acting was really great. The-- oh, he's named this one out of my head, the guy who was in-- Frank Lovejoy? Frank Lovejoy. Yeah, it might be, right? Yeah, we got some good actors in this. We got Frank Lovejoy and the guy McGraw who played the kernel. I thought he was exceptional. And for a while, when I was listening to it, I was like, is that William Conrad? That's what I thought too. OK, that's what I thought too. And here's a little tidbit, and not to get too far ahead. But Charles McGraw and William Conrad both played in the movie The Killers in 1946 as the big heavies to attack Burt Lancaster. So yeah, they do kind of pair up together. But yeah, I thought it was William Conrad too, at first. Isn't that funny? But I thought it was great. I really enjoyed it. I liked the way they did the-- well, I won't give anything a point. So go ahead. I'm going to wait on that. Right on. Anything else before we go beyond tomorrow? I personally think it has all the elements of classic 1950s science fiction. And I think we can talk about that on the end. But I think people should just keep that in their head of not just all the elements of classic 1950s science fiction, but also all the elements of modern day conspiracy level science fiction too, which is awesome. I love every aspect about this show for that reason. And that's all I'm going to say. That's a very good point. Think about this in the time period that it was coming out at in 1950. Yeah, and Jeff, what were you-- Let me just say one more thing before we go, because that just rang a bell with me. So this came out Christmas Eve, actually, right? 1950. That's right, yeah. I mean, it's when he got published. I mean, it came out in the magazine. Yeah, the magazine did. And it's interesting that in August of '49 is when the Soviets detonate their first nuclear test that we knew. That's a very good point. That's going to definitely come into play. And so it's interesting that I just wrote 10538, and it's coming out mutual. And I did it because of what was going on in the world. And so I can only imagine Graham Dorr, the Soviets, explode a nuclear weapon. He writes this story, publishes it, and like that. So the time period-- so when you say the time period, and how much-- we can talk about this on the other side, but how much events in the world inspire, or whatever words want to use, writers to write a certain thing. So it's got to be-- there's got to be a connection. Yeah. And just to throw in some dates for people also, this show was originally, quote unquote, "prepared," and it sounds like it was prepared as almost like a pilot or an audition piece, is what they called it, on February 23rd of 1950. But it finally aired, depending on-- it looks like it was either April 13th, which is according to stuff I found on the internet. But this particular audio file from the internet archives that we're using says it was April 18th. So either April 13th or April 18th of 1950 is when the outer limit from "Beyond Tomorrow" was aired, and let's go right into the show. Now for tonight's story. Let's go "Beyond Tomorrow." [DRAMATIC MUSIC] Are you afraid to face tomorrow, or whatever may lie, "Beyond Tomorrow"? Do you think you're up to spending a weekend on the moon or entertaining house guests from Mars? Can you and your children adjust to the strange, new, wonderful world that is being wrought in the test tubes and cyclotrons of science? Beyond Tomorrow? Beyond Tomorrow, a new program of probabilities drawn from the vast library of science fiction, where anything is possible and possibly may happen to you. Tonight, based on a famous story of the outer limit by Graham Dor, the tale of a pilot of an experimental jet rocket aircraft about to be hurled 40 miles out from the Earth's surface into the limitless boundaries of space, and there to receive the most terrible warning in the history of man. [DRAMATIC MUSIC] 0 minus 25, 0 minus 5. Go down. I settled down, then. OK, Colonel. Yes, sir. All of you will want to know why we took you one out of them. Whatever warmth I bet you were in. Got a reason. The RJX-1. Yeah, yeah, that's right. The RJX-1, the top, top secret experimental rocket jet aircraft. We've been babying it, nursing it, staying up nights with it for 16 months now. This morning, Major Westfall is going to wean it. Bill is going to take her out and be her up to death. I can impress upon you men how extraordinary this flight is. It's an eight rocket ship. That's what I said, eight rockets. Eight rockets designed to take man into areas of space that have never been explored before, and at a rate of speed to which no pilot has yet been subjected. Some of you men have already flown many times the speed of sound, so I don't have to tell you very much. No? Yes, Colonel? You're only the F-86's. You and the other three jet boys will be Bill's chase planes. We want observation of 35,000 feet. Yes, sir. OK, here's how it plays. Paul Curtin's on the map, will you, sir? Yes, sir. You see it circled here, your rendezvous point. We designated point exits roughly over Boulder Dam. Zero hour is 0900. Joe, you and your jets will take off at 0 minus 15. You got that? Yes, sir. Your F-86's will make conventional climbs to 30,000 feet. Bondi-vote point X and call in to meet control at 35,000 feet. Right, Joe? That's OK, Colonel. Oh, no, wait a minute, not quite. Now we hear about the weather, Pete. Yes, Colonel? Well, the weather's very pretty, out boys. All clear, ceiling unlimited. Wins the law to 10,000, 80 MPH, 25,000, 140 MPH, 40,000, 150 MPH, estimated temperature, 45 below it, 40,000 feet. There's some scattered clouds northwest to point X at 15,000 feet. Stratus at 30,000 feet, 30 miles east of point X, east. We expect no chance for three hours. That's it, sir. OK, Pete. Joe, you and your boys go unwrapped. Your F-86's have a nice time. Yes, sir. Come on, boy. Major West of all. Major West, we'll stick around. I want to talk to you. OK, hey. How you feeling, Bill? No, why? You worried Hank? Don't worry. Look, Bill, you've got only 10 minutes of rocket fuel. Get rid of those jets before you fire the rockets. Fire only one rocket at a time, man. Yeah, that's right. Now look, I'll be listening in on the public address of control. I won't bother you until you're airborne. It'll be between you and the tower until then. I don't worry, Hank. I want to fly that baby higher and faster than anybody ever did before, just like you said. I'm going to take it up, and I'm going to bring it back. And then you and I'll have dinner together, hm? [MUSIC PLAYING] There, oh, my, and three. There, oh, my-- Good morning, Colonel. Mr. Argo. You'll be here to control with me. It's all right with you, Colonel. I wouldn't have it any other way. You've checked the communications equipment, Sergeant. Oh, yes, sir, make your westfolds been assigned a special radio frequency of 3970. I've got it. Good, you take care of it, Sergeant. We don't want it to poop out or anything like that, do we? Oh, yes, sir. No, sir, sir. Hard, oh, I got a thing on my mind. That boy in the plane, you geniuses design. He's my best boy. It's our best plane, Colonel. It better be. Now it's your turn. What do you got in your mind? Everything's a proper order, Colonel. Recording equipment, the television cameras, and the cockpit, everything. Every known scientific device, even some unknown. They've been very good. We're talking about a man, Hardro. That's all I really want to get back out of this. What about the man? There may be one difficulty. Tell me about it. I'd like to know the takeoff with all that load, the jets, the rockets, all at maximum fuel capacity. Never been tested that way before. Go on, Mr. Hardro. Well, it's just that Major Westfall has only 6,000 feet to get his ship airborne. If he accelerates from 0 to 160 miles per hour and 6,000 feet, he should be airborne in seven seconds. Seven seconds at MiG-0 plus G. Yes, Colonel. Beyond 0 plus G. Don't be on that. We don't know. We just don't know. Thanks. Thanks for everything, Mr. Hardro. Tyron? Yes, sir. Flip your switch on Major Westfall. I hear he's got a swell program. Flip them all with it, Sergeant. Yes, sir. RJX-1 to power any change in weather. To power to RJX-1, barometer rating 29.7. Set your altimeter accordingly. Roger. Win 15 miles from south. Take off runway 27. Runway 27. Got it. Zero minus one. Three. Zero minus one. RJX-1. Control RJX-1. Go ahead. This is just for you, Hank. Captain, pressure, OK. Oxygen, pressure, OK. All right, all right. Get off the dime, kid. Hi. Take a pill, Hank. You'll need it to send you a stomach. Zero minus one. Zero minus one. RJX-1. Go ahead. RJX-1. Go ahead. I'm ready to fire. Hold it. OK. I'll set to fire. Clear. Clear. Zero minus 30. Zero minus one. RJX-1. Zero minus 30. RJX-1. RJX-1. RJX-1. Go ahead. Western Airlines Conveille reported over Ventura. Got it. Eastbound constellation at 17,000 over Salt Lake. Roger. Western Airlines DC-4 on Base Lake at 1,000 over Burbank. The rest of the air is yours. Thanks. Thank you so much. Zero minus 10. RJX-1, the power. Ready to take off. Zero minus RJX-1. Clear for take off. Five. Good luck, Bill. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero. He's rolling. He's rolling. Rolling. B. B. B. E. L. Lift it. G. Lift it. G. Lift it. G. G. D. RJX-1. G. RJX-1. RJX-1. Go ahead. Everything's great, Hank. It's a doll, baby. Hey. You must have been kidding with that take off. Okay. RJX-1. RJX-1. RJX-1. Control. RJX-1. Control. RJX-1. Go ahead. Everything's great, Hank. It's a doll, baby. Hey. You've been kidding with that take off, weren't you? It took that long to get off. That makes it a take off. How fast are you climbing, kid? 1,700 a minute airspeed. 550. Retract your landing gear. It'll help. Well, I'm sorry. Call me at 20,000. Heading is 87. Everything is real. Go ahead. Come in, Hank. How do you feel? I like it here. Pressure okay? Okay. F86 we have to control. F86 to control. Come in. Control to F86. Go ahead. F86 observing RJX-1. He's really tearing ground of a point exit 35,000. On schedule, Joe? On schedule. On schedule. RJX-1 to control. RJX-1 to control. Control to RJX-1. Go ahead, Bill. 4,500. F86. Hill or doll, baby? Still is. Ready to pressurize. Can you hear me okay, Hank? Coming in fine. Pressurize. Ready to prime rocket system in five seconds. Prime. Dropping like jet. Dropping left jet. All clear. Good luck, Bill. Firing number one rocket. Firing. Oh, Hank is back. Firing number two rocket. Firing. Hey, Hank. Okay, Bill, what is it? Bill. Bill, are you receiving me? Control to RJX-1. Come in. Come in, RJX-1. Hello, Bill. Come in. Control to F86 liter. Control to F86 liter. Come in. F86 liter to control. Go ahead. What about it, Joe? F86 observing RJX-1. RJX-1 at approximately 60,000 feet. Maintaining and heading of north-northwest. I can barely make him kernel. Try calling. Okay. F86 liter to RJX-1. F86 to RJX-1. Come in. Come in, RJX-1. Come in. Mr. Hargrove. F86 to RJX-1. Share it with me, Mr. Hargrove. F86 to RJX-1. Sit here and run your fingers through your hair. Come in, RJX-1. Wait and think about it and share it with me. F86 to RJX-1. F86 liter to control. F86 liter to control. Come in. Go ahead, F86 liter. We've lost it, kernel. Stay up there, Joe, for as long as you can. What do we do now, kernel? I just told you, Mr. Hargrove, we wait. You and me, we wait. We've lost it, kernel. You haven't lost me, I can hear you, Joe. Stay up there, Joe, for as long as you can. Hello. Hello. Hello. I'll try another frequency, Joe. RJX-1 to F86, can you make me? RJX-1 to F86, come in, come in. Now, good, huh? I'll switch back to channel Charlie. I still can't get you, Joe. I'll keep sending. Firing number eight, Rocket. Fired. Hello, Prud. Oh, Prud. RJX-1 to all you ships at sea, to all you people anywhere. This is Bill Westfall approaching 210,000 feet. That's 40 miles straight up in the air, all you people, and that's where I am. You never saw anything like it. No crowds. A color no one ever named before. Silence. Eight rockets roaring at my tail and I can't hear them. Their sound will never reach me at 1,800 miles an hour. Silence, so complete that the ticking of the clock in my instrument's panel is a hammer in my brain. Silence. Otherwise, nothing. Nothing except. No, nothing at all. Wait a minute. Yes, there is something all right. It's two o'clock high. Oh, that's really something, brother. Maybe a flying disc and this is a big one. Spinning like a top and it's coming toward me. Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Listen. Something has just happened. Something amissive. Sound shot, maybe through the canopy. My pressure is going down. Something has happened to me. This thing, it's like a magnet. I'm being filled through it. I've lost control of my ship. I don't control. And that's the decompression. From the original consciousness. He's watching out. He's splashed. He's in here. Silence. You are listening to The Outer Limit, starring Frank Lovejoy and another thrilling adventure on the exciting new science fiction series, Beyond Tomorrow. In a moment we'll return to our story, but first, CBS wishes to remind you that there's a lot of bright listening in the daytime as well as at night. Every weekday, Monday through Friday, two of radio's top stars, author Godfrey and Art Linkletter, are heard on most of these same CBS stations. Godfrey is here for an hour and a quarter each day with his wit and humor and the music of The Little Godfrey's, Bill Lawrence, Jeanette Davis, The Mariners, the Chordettes. For a half hour each weekday, Art Linkletter is on hand with his famous house party. The insatiable curiosity is endless flow of questions. Bring out the most human, the funniest things about people. They flirted, fainted, bragged and fought at his mic and come back for more. Listen to author and to art as often as you can, daytime on CBS. Now, back to our story. ♪♪ He had only ten minutes fuel. He's three hours overdue. Well, that's that, Colonel. But wait some more, Mr. Hargrove. There's no point to it. May I make a suggestion, Colonel? What? Give it up. Make your report to Washington. What about you, Mr. Hargrove? To be frank with you, Colonel, in another sixteen months there'll be another plane. The RJX2. And the Army will give us another man to fly it. Not 'til we're certain about this man, and we're not certain. What are you supposed to do? The things that are in the manual. We'll organize search parties and put spotter planes up in the air. Maybe Bill came down on the ocean. We'll call the Navy in. Colonel, if the RJX1 came down on the ocean, it would sink in three minutes. You know it had no life-reserve equipment on it. The added weight of the-- We'll call the Navy in. Whatever you say, Colonel. My guess-- What's your guess, Mr. Hargrove? My guess is that sometime, somewhere on some beach or in some field, someone will pick up a piece of torn metal. That someone will be holding what's left of the RJX1. [SIREN WAILING] [SIREN WAILING] Yes, sir. I am Zeglion. You're aboard the fake patrol ship at 2J3. Am I in communication with you? Can you understand, Dave? Are we in contact? Can you understand now what I am saying to you? Yes, yes, sir. Yes, I can understand you. Earthman, your brain is in turmoil, is it not? It has great difficulty in accepting what you see. Yeah. Yes, that's right. Accept it. What you see here exists. All this? This exists? It exists, Earthman. They ship your own exists. Those jet dynamos you see before you exist. Jet dynamos, driven by the harness power of a thousand sun. Listen, Earthman, listen to them. Do you know what happened as you listened to Earthman? We have flung ourselves 10,000 miles into space. What do you say to that, Earthman? Why? I don't know what to say. It's beyond the conception of your Earth's brain. Then can seize this. Try to move, Earthman. You're not bound in any ways. Try to move. What? Too strange. It's impossible for you to move. There's a screen of force aimed at you. Now it's turned off. You may move about, Earthman. Earthman? Yes, Commander. Earthman, I perceive that your intellect now accepts the fact. Your aboard space patrol ship S2J3. I am Captain Zeglum of the Galactic Guard. Galactic. Galactic Guard. The Guardian of the Galaxy. The Guardian of the Universes. The instrument the Brotherhood of Worlds is set up in defense against such a civilization is yours. What puzzles are you, Earthman? Well, I can't see you. I can feel that you're here, but I can't see you. There's no necessity for you to see us. It is sufficient that we communicate with each other. Yes, but talking to you is... Well, it's not like talking. It's as if we're all happening inside my brain. It is. That is how I'm reaching you, by telepathy. Do you remember what happened to you before you blacked out? Yes, I think so. There was a sharp sound like a bullet hitting the canopy. It was not a bullet. It was a ray. It was necessary to stop your flight. We have so much to tell you. Well, first tell me about my ship. Is it lost? No. Is it such a crude little ship? How easy for us to repair? It will be returned to you. And you will return to us. Because you are the Earth's only hope of survival. Hope of survival. What do you mean? I will show you. What you see on this screen before you is a panorama of your own universe. Far greater in scopes than an Earth man has ever seen before. Observe. Observe what the line is pointing. Planet 3, star 5, galaxy C, sector K. Is that the Earth? No. That dot, that spec you see revolving in the vastness, is your sun. A star who sets us to 12,000 times, that would be your Earth. Your Earth is not even visible here. What? How did you know we even existed? That was our problem. We first became aware of your planet when we found atomic dust in the upper atmosphere. We praised it to your Earth. It was that important to you? Quite. We determined that you were setting off atomic bombs. That's why the Galactic Council has quarantined you. Quarantined? I don't understand how. How are we quarantined? We have peeled off your planet from the rest of space. But we have surrounded it with a fourth screen. When that screen has accumulated enough particles of atomic dust, your Earth will explode. Your civilization, you, all life will disappear forever. Listen to me, Earth man. Listen. We've had our own wars. Wars that almost destroyed our civilization. But we have finally outlawed war throughout space, including Earth. Now listen carefully, Earth man. If you continue to make atom bombs and hydrogen bombs, each many times more powerful than the last. And if you start making war with them, exploding them, it would upset the balance of the entire universe, throw all space into chaos. This, of course, we cannot allow. And the fourth screen with which we have surrounded the Earth will prevent it by exploding the Earth itself. Remember then, Earth man. If you start an atomic war, the Earth will at once be completely destroyed. One, them Earth man. Listen, then, gone. Yes, Commander. Earth man, you will rise from your seat and open that door. They send those stairs, Earth man. You will now enter the chamber to your left. There's your ship. Get into it, Earth man. Are you ready? Yes, I'm ready. While we were communicating, the patrol ship has returned to where we picked you up. And now you will be propelled to Earth. Close your canopy. Open up with your... War number, it's man. War man. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. RJ X-1 to tower. RJ X-1 to tower. Come in. RJ X-1 to tower. Come in, tower. Tower to 20, man. You loaded, kid. How did you get in on this frequency? Listen, this is RJ X-1. RJ X-1 coming in for landing. Give me landing instructions. Tower to 20, man. Impossible that you're RJ X-1. He's 10 hours overdue. Get away from the area. Area cleared for bomber practice approaches. This is Major Westfall and RJ X-1. Come on, kid. Give me landing instructions. I have no fuel. I'm gliding. What? Hey, yeah, I see you now, Major. Wait a minute. I'll restrict the area. Okay, RJ X-1. Go ahead. Approximately six miles north of field. Clear area for 10 miles. Being cleared. What's your altitude? 10,000. That's the next six minutes to land. Tower to RJ X-1. You are cleared to land. Run way nine. Wind east, south east 15. Roger, coming down. Hi, Hank. Bill, Bill, what happened? Hank, you won't believe it, but you've got to. I know you won't believe it. It'll knock you over. No, just take it easy, Bill. Sergeant. Yes, sir. Have the ship gone over by Geiger counters for radio activity and seal it. What? Oh, yes. Hank, you bet 'em out a 24-hour guard on it. Look, what did you run into? Plenty. Listen to me, Hank. They said the Earth would explode. They said it was the end for us. They said that? Come on, let's go over to my office. You got to believe me. Read it like an order, Bill. My office, try one. Major Donaldson, to look at you. There's a car at this. Hank, you've got to listen to me. Now, over to the office. Well, that's the story, Major Donaldson. That's the story, Bill. It's the story, Bill. It's the story, Bill. I'm going over to the office. Well, that's the story, Major Donaldson. I see. But... Hank, you'll believe it, don't you? Well, Major, what do you think? I'm not sure. Bill, these men from Mars. I didn't say they were from Mars. Do you hear me say anything about men from Mars? No, you didn't. All I'm trying to tell you is this. Whoever those people were, they knew all about us, everything. And they warned me. Our atomic bombs were a danger to the universe. One more and we're going to be the juiciest galactic force of July of all time. Explode, finish gone. Like that. How do you like it? All right, Bill, roll up your sleeve. Oh, and I'll forget it, Major. All I need to couple of drinks. Sorry, Bill. Sorry. Not right, neither. The Major, give you a high blow. Now, look, I got a drink coming. A lot of drinks. Later. Come on, fell asleep. You heard him, Bill. All right, yes. All right. If it's an order. Go ahead. There. You'll be OK in a few hours. I'm OK now. Sure. We'll leave you here, Bill. It's all out of full sleep in here, isn't it, Colonel? Sure. Yeah. Well, maybe you'll believe me tomorrow. You'd better. Come on, Major. He'll be OK by himself, Major. He's been under a strain. A little sleep a long time. You better explain it to his wife somehow. I'll talk to him tomorrow. Tough. I've heard he's one of the best. He's the best. A combination of nerve and loyally and lightning reflexes that comes once and ten million times. What about it, Major? How does Bill appeal? I can't tell yet. Maybe a week? Six months, six years. I'll need a whole lot of time with him before I can tell. And, let's see. Well, he does. Well, he'd better get some sleep, too. All right. And don't worry, Colonel. He's a strong boy. Best nerds I've seen. I'd say things will be all right. Delusions like Bill's latched on to, well, delusions like this. Major. Yes, Colonel? Major, when you make your charts for Bill, diagnose them and treat them and do all the things you have to. When you do that, Major, consider this. Yes? How did he keep that plane in the air for ten hours? For ten hours, Major, when he had fueled the last of him only ten minutes. Tonight's Story of the Outer Limit by Graham Doar was produced and directed by William M. Robeson. The adaptation for Radio by Morton Fine and David Friedman starred Frank Lovejoy. Featured in the cast were Charles McGraw as the Colonel and Jeff Corey as Major Donaldson. Special music was arranged and conducted by Del Castillo. Listen again at this same time next week to another exciting adventure in time and space. A story about you, in the future. You, beyond tomorrow. And we're back. So, Jeff, you ended up giving us some information before, but you were sort of dying to throw something else out there. What were some of your thoughts of the show now that we've listened to it and the audience has listened to it? Well, the thing is that now that everyone's listened to it and all the nuclear stuff, you know, comes up. And I find that it was an entertaining show. I enjoyed it. I really liked it. I listened to it a number of times. But it does something that I think, for me, and there's a lot of talk, different ideas about this. But for me, a big part of science fiction is not so much, maybe a cautionary tale is too strong. But there's something like, okay, this is what's going on, but I'm going to set it in the future. So, we're detached from it a little bit. And now, okay, we've got, you know, if you don't stop this nuclear proliferation, this, you know, this mad theory stuff, you know, then you're going to be destroyed. We're going to destroy you. The force shield around the planet is going to explode. And so, it's to me, to me, good science fiction, whether it's Fahrenheit 451 or, you know, whatever it is, is telling you, you know, the path you're on maybe isn't a good one, and it's going to adversely affect you in the future. And I think this did a really good job at that. It just, you know, when you're reading it and he gets whatever you want to call it, it's kind of cool the way that he gets abducted and then gets sent back. And I also like the, it had the, the gentlemen aliens in it as well, like, like C shoot, right? You know, the nice aliens. Hey, man, we're just warning you. Go ahead. I'll have some things to say when we bring in the mythic resonances of that. Yeah. So, yeah, I loved it. And we'll get into the other stuff I'm sure as we go along, but I want to get Jack. He looks like he needs to say something. When have I not? When have I not? That's. Oh, I, I, I, I can get into the depth of it, but I want to bring up a couple of things about the series and, and writer begin. There's not a lot about the writer, strangely enough. He is an IMDB. I don't know if you know that. Yeah. He only wrote like five or six stories. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. At least they were published. And he was in IMDB for an episode from out there, which was an anthology series in sort of like Twilight Zone style, but science fiction. And it had quite the collection of writers as well. Reginald Rose, Theodore Sturgeon, which, by the way, is one of the other credits in this three episodes series of, of Beyond Tomorrow. Robert A. Heinlein in Theodore Sturgeon. To be, to be in the same company as a lot of other two is a pretty impressive thing. So I, I'm fascinated with the little amount of information that these things often have. And, you know, what happened to somebody who hasn't written as much about that. He was born in 1912. He died in 1985. Where's all the pieces on in between interested in all that kind of stuff? Because obviously he had an interest in science fiction, just like Robert A. If you say Heinlein and you say Sturgeon, you don't have to say, well, what did they write? You know, it's just well-known science fiction for that kind of thing. So that's what got my attention was, who is this guy, you know, who Graham Doar, who wrote this in the first place, and how, how much did he know about all this? And I was going to joke at the end of the beginning of the first break. It's just like, we don't know if, when it was released, if it was released and all that, and it's because the government, the government has, has tried to obscure the whole idea. Wouldn't that just fit perfectly for this particular episode to suggest that it was the government that did that for that reason? Well, and that brings up something that I think you both sort of touched on, which is the time period that was written, the type of science fiction, but here's something that I find very fascinating with that opening intro, which is more ominous than wondrous. You know, it was really, and especially the part of, can you and your children adjust to the strange new wonderful world that is being wrought in the test tubes and cyclotrons of science beyond tomorrow? God, no, I can't get it away from me. That's right, yeah. You know, it's like, it's great, but, and that ties in with, when I first selected this, I did it for two main reasons, which is one, it was the earliest series of sci-fi that was dedicated to sci-fi, even though it failed, and so I thought that would be a good place to start. And also, it just seemed like such a perfectly iconic story of that time period of us trying to race up into space, and suddenly things are larger, and the whole cautionary tale, and all that. And I didn't even realize at first what other resonances were happening until probably the second or third time listening to it, but I think part of it ties into a little bit of our fears of technology, but specifically anything dealing with civilization. When we talk about civilization, we talk about things like, "Oh, we've got manners, and, you know, there's structure, and there's laws, and there's all these things." But the word originally got back, and even though it's semantically changed, I think it's important to keep an idea of what one of my old teachers called the etymology of ideas, even more so than the history of ideas, of how do they, like words, change, and how are they cognate to other ideas? And the original term for civilization, similar with civics or civil planning, anything, all deal with cities. So when we started first becoming sedentary and creating settlements that we created structures that we lived in, that was when we became civilized, and that's when we first started separating. So we've got all these myths about, you know, the early civilization of Gilgamesh that we talk about and the Babylonians and things like that. Well, maybe the ultimate aspect of that is the nuclear bomb, of look at what we have created with our civilized ways, and what is the fear that is here. And so when we talk about those test tubes and cyclotrons and going out into space in nuclear bombs, that's an extension of our natural predilection to become civilized and to create our sedentary ways. That'll go back to some earlier myths in a bit, but what do you guys think about the technology aspect, the fear around everything? How do you think it fed into this and any thoughts that you have on that sort of thing? Well, if I may, I'm sorry, I didn't need to jump in, but there's something that it just screams, and it's a phrase I hadn't heard and it was created as far as I know by Paul Chateau from The Frantics, which is one of my favorite comedy groups, which I sent you guys stuff from. And he does videos nowadays, but stuff, and he says, and he's right, I think what's missing in a lot of science fiction today is gear porn. And so like guys love gear porn, right? Fixing stuff, you know, the warp speed breaks down, the this does that, like there's so much gear porn in this episode, it's amazing. Like there's just all this tech stuff like they're coming in and we have to hit this year on the zero hour zero and this the 5,000 this and he's mine and my boys and there's a lot of this like strong masculine. Well, who's going to fly here and what are we going to do? And it's really cool because it sets up like this amazing like technology. We're going to, he's going to beat the hell out of it. He's going to, you know, he's going to take it up and he's going to bash it around and kick it up and down the street, you know, and the whole bit. And then you get to outer space and it's laughable comparatively to what's there. Like they're not even children, right? They're just everything is completely gone. But like I said, you get excited about this kind of stuff. Like I remember Star Trek and Star Wars, everybody talk about transporters and phasers and all the different, you know, all the stuff that people talk about because they love, you love the tech, you love the building of the stuff. So I think that is like, that's a key element. And like I said, there's not a lot of that in modern day writing. There's, there seems to be a lot of that missing aspect sort of like, how did they get here from here to there? Oh, well, they did. They had a nice conversation and they became friends over it, you know, something like that. And that was it. So, but no, this is like, filled to the brim with tech talk and ways of doing things and this, this, this hypermasculinity style of stuff. I found it fascinating for that. So what did you think, Jeff? One of the reasons I like doing science fiction programs is I like building the world. I like putting the sound effect in and this is this machine and this is this and this going on. So I get, I get what you're saying. That's just fun for me to put that in there. But I kind of enjoyed the, you know, I, I grew up, you know, I remember watching us land on the moon in 1969 on little black and white, you know, TV, big, big piece of furniture, but little screen, you know. And I remember my mother let me stay up and watch it. And I just was, I was always fascinated by those guys in mission control. You know, they all had the crew cuts and the white shirts and the skinny ties right in the pocket protectors. You know, you know, and it was, I don't know, those guys were always like, you know, I was like, wow, how did he get to be in mission control? You know, space launch, man. You know, I just, I love that stuff. So when I'm listening to that, and I thought Charles is Charles McGraw. Yep. Yeah. When I thought, I just thought he was what a performance and, and, and all that stuff they were doing and, and, you know, and, and talk to Jack's point about the gear stuff, you know, all the, you know, the radio stuff in the, the countdowns. And for some reason, they were doing alphabet. I don't know what the hell that was about. If you, you know, tell me, but, you know, it was, but it was cool. So I love, I do love all that stuff. Although it's funny, like, I've been a Star Wars fan since Star Wars came originally came out, but I'm not, I don't, I don't like know all like the canon. I don't know all the stuff. So when a friend of mine was talking about the acolyte show that just came out. And he was talking about all these inconsistencies. And I don't know that stuff. I just watch it. You know what I mean? And I just, I go, you know, it is what it is. And so I'm not really into all that stuff, but I do like the world building making science fiction. And, you know, the idea, like, I think at one point, one of the, the aliens, does he call it a crude ship or something like that? Your simple little ship or, you know, he, because they were talking about this is. Yeah, this is the greatest, it has eight rockets on it, man. I'm trying to picture the ship with eight rockets or whatever is happening there. And they're all, this is the greatest thing we've ever done. It's going to take us a year and a half to build another one. You know, and they're like, yeah, well, we fixed your simple little ship. The guy's like, dude, you know, and, you know, and so I thought it was, I just thought it was great. One thing I did like, at first it was jarring for me is the way they did the alien language. Yeah. And at first I'm going, what is that? And then they kind of phase it into this very proper person talking. And I said, that was pretty cool. And then he turns, at one point, he turns and talks to the other guy and it goes back to the alien language. Yeah. And then he comes back and, of course, it's all telepathic for, for sure, the pilot, but I just, I said, no, that's pretty cool. I mean, that's, I don't know if how well it worked, but the concept is like. Yeah. I never thought of that. The execution could have been better later, but the idea was absolutely brilliant and they did it and it's like good on them. That's, that's great. That was so cool. And Jack, one of the things you were saying about like the gear porn, which I agree with, especially because if we take that word a little bit less of the self-deprecating, hey, we're really into this stuff when we're making fun of it, but also talk about like, what is, you know, what does pornography do from a, from a semantic semiotic point of view, which is that you're trying to. Get people to engage with something. Puriant, a little bit emotional. It can override other things. And one of the things that a bunch of people noticed, even if they weren't necessarily direct fans was that Star Trek, the next generation took that to an almost literal sense of gear porn to where there were so many episodes. So it's like, really, the engineers are solving it again. They're the heroes again. This is just power fantasy stuff for tech geeks. And I think the pendulum swung back a little bit with Babylon five, where the techno people were really pretty minor. It was the military commanders and heroes making real, real-time stuff. You know, Garibaldi, the security officer is more like a cop. You got people doing human things, not just sitting there going like, I'm a geek and I put this into here and I solved the day because I bypassed the super widget. And so I think we need to get back to something that I do remember being really strong is when I was reading Heinlein's Juvenalia as a kid. And I think it was in Starman Jones, but it might have been how spacesuit will travel. He has a whole section in there on astrogation and astrophysics. And you come away going, oh my God, I want to do that. That's really cool. But math is awesome. Any author that can make someone who's not technically inclined go, that's really cool. He is great. And Neil Stevenson, even though he can be really dense with some of his newer books, but even when he was writing his, I think it was called the mechanism of the world. It's basically his trilogy of very, very dense books all taking place around the 1600s with Isaac Newton was a main character and some other ones. And it's all about the beginning of calculus and bizarre stuff and the idea of modernity coming about. But he has this huge chapter on optics based on Newton's experiments on optics. And you come away from it going like, that's the coolest thing in the world. It's like watching a cop show and going, I want to be a cop afterwards. You read Stevenson talk about this stuff and you're like, wow, that's awesome. But if you don't have an author doing that, it can be really mind-numbing. And yeah, I would like to see science fiction get a little bit back more into that, but in a really good, well done way. Little sidebar there. But talking again about the technologies and the fears of technologies and even those, the gentlemen, aliens that you're talking about, one of the things that resonated with me of this after I listened to it a few times is because I'm sure, you know, Jeff, maybe you'll be able to bring in the Shakespearean connection in a bit if there is one. But the mythic connection had a couple of resonances, which is, okay, what are some early myths about technology leading us to something transcendent that maybe we're getting outside of our reach? Well, maybe one of the obvious ones is Icarus. Right, where they create artificial wings to fly and, you know, well, Daedalus says, you know, don't go too close to the sun. Don't get too, you know, don't go beyond your reach or else you're going to, your wax is going to melt. You're going to crash and burn it all in some tears. That's what happened with Icarus. Well, we have another one also, which maybe deals a little bit more with technology and or civilization technology specifically in regards to the building of cities or anything extended from our civilization that way, which is the Tower of Babel. God, you know, they try and get close to God. They build a structure that will lead them up there. And of course, they're getting a little bit beyond their grasp and the hubris and they get knocked down. We have less of a cautionary tale and more of a, well, this is a whole new world that you need to change yourself for when we look at the, the Platonist, the Neoplatonist, the Pythagoreans, later on, people like Proclus, but let's look at the Corpus Hermeticum, which is the collection of texts about hermeticism, which ties in with a lot of that stuff, where you've got things like the Poimandras, where someone achieves a certain amount of spiritual enlightenment, raises out of the sphere of earth to the heavenly spheres, and meets a consciousness beyond them saying, in order for you to exist here, for you to be able to like, you know, thrive in this spiritual world, you need to become something different. You need to purify yourself. You need to let go of that aggression. And now you've had some sort of connection with divinity. So these gentlemen aliens, if you look at it from a Neoplatonist point of view or a hermetic point of view or even a Gnostic point of view, they could be something higher that's saying, "Hey, if you're going to keep being this angry, nasty person that could blow each other up, then you really don't have any, you know, you don't have any right to be here and we're going to stop it because you're a danger to the rest of the universe." So I think you get a little bit of that, again, not exactly a one-to-one, not thinking that the author, you know, or the ropes in and the people who adapted here that we'll talk about, also in a little bit of the people who did the adaptation. But I think there's a little bit of that going on. And again, that mythic resonance coming back again, where we came out of the Noir world with that doom and depressing. And then we had like, "Oh, here's the positiveness of science. We've got these cyclotrons and the test tubes, but there's also this cautionary tale. Can we be something better than we were?" And I think in some ways, they are dealing with those same spiritual questions, but in a technological framework of science fiction. Same thing with Atlantis, if you think about it. By the way, they just came out with a brand new documentary, which I'm looking forward to hearing our watching called "The Puzzle of Atlantica" based on some work that a guy did in 2008 and it's kind of mind-blowing. So he did some interesting translations and there's a book that I'm going to recommend you read, especially Ulo, the philosophy between the line. And it talks about some of the aspects of looking at ancient writings and what they're actually trying to say between the lines and what's not being said. Very interesting. Anyway, I would also say, and Jeff, I maybe probably agree with me, that it may be on the technological side of things, but when it comes to civilizational aspirational things that go beyond their reach and fall down, that's the Arthurian cycle. So the same kind of thing where you have this golden age of Arthur and then it's destroyed from within. It's hubris that always ends up destroying these things. And the idea of the Galactic Federation, for example, that's today. People are talking about that today. There is this Galactic Federation and they are encircling Earth. This is conspiracy folk talking. They're encircling Earth with all these different aliens and we got their attention when we use nuclear weapons. And that's why there's so many UFO reportings on military bases that have even turned off and turned on nuclear silos and that they're very concerned about blowing on the planet, not because it does, but because nuclear weapons can actually damage the fabric of space and kind of like put a hole in a galactic highway. So if people are going from one place to another, it can cause problems from them to go to different star systems and they don't want to see that happen. That's one of the many stories of the whole Galactic Federation. So I'm like, this is where it comes from or something like this is amazing. I was going to say, a page in Jeffrey Criple, Dr. Jeffrey Criple in his book, Mutants and Mystics, he talks about how pop culture influences people's, let's call mystical experiences, whether UFO abductions, whatever, whatever they think happened, whether it really happened or not, their experience is something that's real to them. And it directly usually references some sort of thing that got into pop culture in some way. And then their stuff gets into the news, that then feeds into some other author that goes, hey, I read this story about this guy who had this weird experience, I'm going to write a story about it. And then it feeds back into the popular culture and the strange attractor algorithm keeps going on and on and on and our pop culture affects the way we conceive of non-physical phenomena, which then affects fiction again, which then keeps cycling back and forth and back and forth, whether it be something that's ontologically true or just internal to the experiencer. It's a fascinating oscillation back and forth. In fact, one of the more recent movies, if you want to look at the whole Galactic Federation story and people are like, this is it, they snuck in the reality of what's going on. It was a terrible movie by the guys, the people who did the Matrix, it was called Jupiter Ascending. And the idea was kind of like a Star Wars thing where, again, aliens were circling earth, Mila Kunis ends up being like a reborn version of this great queen because it throws in reincarnation to from all these different galactic civilizations. And there's there's drag, drag ours, you know, and drag us, drag the bonus creatures that are, you know, the lizard people that everybody talks about to as well. And the bug-eyed ones, they're all in it, they're all in this. It's a fun little romp, but it's terrible as a story. But still, it's all there. So, like again, they just piled up the other thing that they really piled into the story, which really made me think, and again, people are examining this with sort of very clear eyes recently is the great filter theory. Do you guys familiar with that? Nope. So, the great filter theory is the theory that a civilization will destroy itself before it ever becomes a lack of nature. So, it could wipe itself out through self destruction, which is the number one thing, right? So, before you ever get to a point where you can create light speed or something like that, you wipe yourself out or your resource gets depleted or asteroid impacts happen. And that's one of the arguments is like, well, where are all the aliens? Why aren't they coming? Well, they're a great filter wipes out most of the species before they ever get to the technological age that they could possibly do that. So, that was created by Robin Hansen in '90s, first proposed by that. But they're basically saying, this is another situation, right, where the great filter comes into play. But Robin Hansen didn't come up with it 40 years later as a theory. Jeff, what do you want to say? Welcome to the High Strainsness Podcast. Exactly. It's like... Well, this is my moment. I'm sorry, this is all mystical. None of these are scientific theories. These are religious theories. Well, and my point is that audio drama creates it all first. There you go. Yes. Jeff, what are you going to say? Well, I was reminded when you were talking about the gear and then something you said, Lothar. Just what shot through my mind was 2001 Space Odyssey. And I remember watching that as a 10-year-old kid in the theater and just... My mind was blown. Because Kubrick just... I mean, you're playing the blue Danube, right? And just these ships are just slowly doing this. And everything is just slow and inside when they're walking around that big circular thing inside. And I remember... I do remember sitting there. Holy shit. And then, of course, Hal 9000 is like hello. You know, and so... But one thing I remember showing that movie to film students, and I've talked about this before, but they're like, "Oh my God." It was like the most boring thing I've ever watched in my life, right? And it's slow. It's deliberate. It's this classical music, you know, and everything's just like... And I think when you take sensibility from 2024, you know, as opposed to 1968, and the fact that everything speeds up in movies, and maybe that's one reason why they don't focus on gear quite as much, because you can do that on the internet, right? You can do that on that stuff, and people want to see cut-cut-cut-cut-action action this, you know, and then maybe that has something to do with it. The other thing I thought about was when you're talking about all the theories you're talking about, Lothar, was there's a line from Jurassic Park where the Jeff Goldman character says, "You know, you spent so much time thinking how you could. You didn't spend it thinking that you... if you should, or something like that." That's a paraphrase, right? And so now it's like that question that you brought up, right, with the, you know, "Should we be doing this?" You know, and of course it comes today with, you know, the AI controversy that happens in the world today, and, you know, "Should we be doing this?" This is kind of like a little strange, you know, and it doesn't feel right. And so I think that all comes into play in the whole thing, and those are just two things that popped in my mind as I was listening to you guys talking. And I think maybe the litmus test for me on any kind of show or is, does it leave me thinking about something? Does it leave some kind of imprint on me that just resonates with me days after I've seen it, read it, whatever. And this does. This does do that for me. And while I agreed, some of it was, some of the actual audio drama was a little bit, you know what I mean? The way it was made. Absolutely. But it was the story I think is fabulous because it's just, it hits it right on the head. I mean, you know, as I was growing up as a kid and, you know, I lived, it's not, well, it's there in a different form, but it was an air force base with bombs. It wasn't nuclear bombs, but there was bombs there and everything. And so we were, you know, we were ground zero. You know, we, it was widely known to newspapers and such that, you know, if the Soviets are going to bomb us, we're going to be one of the first places to go. And, and, you know, so we used to do the get under your, get under your desk grill. Oh, yeah. You know, and, and I used to always tell students. Don't get cover. Yeah, I said it was, it was great that in those days we had nuclear bomb proof desks. So, so we were going to be fine under those desks. But, you know, so, I mean, growing up with that, that mad theory, you know, that, okay, you know, the, we build them, you build them, you build them, you know, and, and that whole thing happens and we've got enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world 100 times over or whatever the number is. And I think that's, that's part of the cautionary tale of, you know, you humans are, you know, and I think so much of science fiction is this because we rarely meet up with aliens that aren't, that are below our level. Unless we go to some planet and it's like, oh, you know, but if they're flying ships, they're like up here and we're down here and they're like, oh, you, you're simpletons, you know, and, and they're, you know, giving us, they're dishing out wisdom. And, and so these aliens are dishing out wisdom to this poor guy who now is probably going to end up in a, you know, in Saint Islam or something. It's pretty common somewhere. Yeah, you know, it's, it's, you know, they're imparting wisdom to this guy of, you're kind of like, you're going to blow your whole planet up, which, you know, we're kind of in the process of doing right now, right? So, so I think he's writing this in 1950. It's 74 years ago that this came out, at least the story. And so I just feel like for science fiction, for me, I'll speak just for me. It, that's the kind of science fiction I like. It's, you know, hey, this is a cautionary tale. This is, you know, look out what you're doing. Watch out for that AI, Hal 9000. Not that he was AI, but you know, I guess he was. Yeah. He was more. Now. That's true. Yeah. Okay. That's true. You know, you got Hal 9000, right? And, and the fact that, you know, Hal, Hal 9000 didn't screw up. He was programmed that way. Right. So now you've got the government thing, right? You know, that Jack is talking about and whatever he was talking about a while ago. And then 10 years later, we'll have Mother and Ash in the movie Alien taking it to another level of the corporate computer, AI stuff. Oh, we will. Well, in the movie Alien. Yeah. Yeah. There's a computer called Mother. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yes. Right. And that's been programmed by the corporation. And then you've got Ash, who's the android, who was programmed to get that any other life forms that might and destroy everybody else. So we've already got this, which brings in the whole, I want to bring it back around to the, the ending of our show today, which was this whole sort of thing of like, you know, you know, he's telling the truth. He kept it up there for 10 hours. There's no way he couldn't, but the, the, the psychiatrist is already automatically going to delusion, even though he shouldn't have had to have that pointed out to him again. But he did. So then the question is, are we going to listen to the warning and change our ways? Or are we not? Are we going to do the same thing we've always done, which is be selfish and predatory and greedy? And yeah, it's really kind of a stretch to say they're going to listen and they're going to change their ways in this artificial world. No, we know they're not going to. They're going to do the same thing we've always done, which is ignore it because there's too much money involved in this program. We've got the RX 23B or what are the hell they were calling it that needs to be made for the next version. And we're going to get out there and we're just going to end up getting killed by the Galactic Federation because we'll never figure it out. They were right to sequester us because we're just a bunch of rabbit apes. Yeah. And, and there's too much involved and, and put in on this particular perspective of, of where reality is, right? The people on the top are always nudging people to the next stage of what they want to release for information necessarily. I'm not getting conspiracy conspiratorial. I'm just saying that's generally what happens when it comes to stuff. People are afraid. We've got all kinds of evidence that from release documents that even, even things like Project Bluebook was partially defunded by various different people in the government who didn't like the idea from a Christian perspective, they said, no, no, no, no, those will be demons and we can't be looking into demon stuff. So I mean, it's a lot of this. I used to have great conversations with my students by saying, well, how do you know this is this, because human beings have a very limited spectrum of what we can see and what we can hear and what we can perceive. And yet we've created a perfectly viable narrative for us to be able to exist in a particular way. So when you start coming up with new things, that frightens people because there's lots of people out there. Most people just want to go about their day and do their thing. They don't want to be pushed into other direction for that reason. So yeah, I agree. And I think, like you said, there's so much of, I mean, you could go straight down the Gnostic path on this very easily, right? And start talking about what are the people who are holding us back and I never remember the name. Oh, you mean the Archons? The Archons. Thank you. Yeah. Return of the Archons, which is amazing. You can do a whole masters class on the very aspect of this particular story, which is very cool. I would like to point out a couple of other just side pieces. Sure. I, William M. Robeson is probably William N. Robeson, I should say, is probably one of my top free producers of all time. And he produced and directed this. He produced and directed this and I think he is amazing. And he's done a ton of stuff. If you don't know, other things that he's very probably well known for suspense and escape and calling all cars, Columbia Workshop, Luke Slaughter, which is really close to my heart in the Western days. If you remember, Man Called X, which I just finished doing an episode from Project Audion for that. And a ton of others. Pursuit, Request Performance, just a ton of Hocklarity, which was a show that you can't find too much. Anyway, he did a bunch of great stuff and I really loved what he had to do with it. And then there was, what was their names? Morton Fine and David Friedman. Except it's not Friedman. I'm glad you brought that up. It's Friedkin. It's Friedkin is because they did a lot of stuff together. Fine and Friedkin were kind of like a Rowan and Martin or whatever it is. They were partnered, but they mispronounced Friedkin's name and called him Friedman in this. That's what I thought. It's Friedkin. Yeah. And to be honest, I hear those names all over the place as well. And whatever you think of, like just right, the way it's produced at times, you're like a little iffy, but when it comes plot-wise, it keeps you engaged on a regular basis. You don't lose the play. You could easily, if this was written by and produced by poorly written writers and producers, you could easily lose the thread based on who's talking, what's going on, where things are happening in this audio drama and you don't. They never drop the thread. And I love that. But one thing that I wanted to bring up is the relationship between the Colonel and the astronaut. I can't remember his name. Bill? Is the guy who goes up. Yeah. Is it Bill and Hank? I don't know why I don't have their names. Maybe they're clearly close friends, right? Right. And so you bring in this humanity versus science thing, right? Because now in the control room that the Colonel's in, the scientist is in there, is the Hartman. The scientist is in there and he's representing the pure science point of view. Well, well, you know, but the Colonel, that's his friend up in that ship, right? And they're going to have a drink when he gets back, right? And so the Colonel is really concerned with his friend who is now out of incommunicado. But the scientist is like, well, we'll just get the next one ready in 16 months and we'll launch that one in this cold kind of, so I think it's also an interesting part about science fiction where you've got all of this science stuff happening. And then the humanity stuff that's happening as well. And those are maybe crossing over a little bit, but they're staying apart in this one. And I think the author seems to be, at least from my perspective, that resonated with me, that, and I think part of it was Charles McGraw's fantastic acting that really resonated with me, how much that the Colonel loved the guy who was up in the, in this era, JX, whatever it was and what it meant to him to have his friend up there. And I think that that's something that we should talk about and, you know, that whole relationship thing and, and, you know, that we just completed C-Shoot, you know, and that whole, what I loved about C-Shoot was that the arc of the character you played Lothar Stewart, and I want to say publicly, man, that was a lot of lines you did, holy shit. For the audience out there, we got a new show C-Shoot that's dropping, I think we're recording this today, right? Yeah, it's off this one, but I would, I told this to Jack, but I didn't tell it to you when I was, when I was mixing it, you know, you're, you're on the, on, on a dacity, your, your lines went all the way way over into the horizon. Everybody else's, everybody else's was like little, I'm going, Jesus, I got to thank Lothar for, you know, for doing this, because it must have given him a sore throat and a headache. But so thank you publicly, you were amazing and, and your Stewart was great, but the thing I love about Stewart, that character is his arc, right, from beginning the humanity of him where he's, he's just cold in the beginning, he's kind of a jerk, right? And but in the end, he's apologizing and he's like, hey, you know, you know, and, and so I think when I, I love the fact that it enrichens the narrative when you, when you look at the humanity of the characters and they're not just cut out cardboard things like that. And so it's, so I wanted to bring that up. I don't know how you guys feel about that, but I just, that was something that struck me as I was listening to it. Jack, what do you think? Oh, I'll, I'll, I'll let you take that. I agree. Okay. And by the way, I love to shoot you. So I, I'm glad to have been a part of that. That was a lot of fun. A lot of fun. I, I, that's the reason why I, I wrote Retro Rockets is I love these, these ways of telling story, right? The way that they put the story together in the fifties, I think something is lost. Maybe that's something they'll be able to discover more and pull apart as we go through the science fiction of the times, right? And, and, and start asking, well, why, why don't we talk about these things in the way that they are? Is it partially because space was so, we had such optimism for ourselves and the future, but we also had such, um, pessimism about whether or not we meant anything in, in, in the, the blackness of space and how did that fit together, right? For those things. I mean, we can always talk about, uh, the cold equation that, right? Mm hmm. Bill's favorite for the same season, we should definitely bring that this season. Yeah, definitely. As a good man. For sure. So you're thoughtful. Um, yeah. I, I, I always love the human angle. To me, all fiction is about wrestling with who we are as people. Um, even if it's a, you know, even an, an escapist thing that you just get completely drawn into the world and you're just leaving everything behind for a little bit, you're still interacting with archetypes and stories and characters and relationships that you have some sort of emotional connection with. And that's why someone would, would continue to watch something or read something or listen to something. Um, one of the things that came across here was, was their friendship. That was obviously the emotional linchpin of everything. And ties a little bit into, I think some of the things at the time, and then something that I think as we have to address Jack's point of how are things different now, well, we know a lot more about space, but we still don't know a whole hell of a lot, you know, compared to a galactic federation, let's say. But one of the things I thought was very telling, and I liked it even though from a certain point of view, it can seem a little cheesy, but I loved the little bit of that first opening sting of the United Air Force theme song, the Wild Blue Yonder song. Here we go. Wild Blue Yonder, and it was just slightly discordant and slowed down, showing, yeah, are we really going into the Wild Blue Yonder? You know, so it was sort of doing a little foreshadowing there. But have, either of you read the book, um, Packing for Mars by Mary Roach? No. Wow. It's, she does some really fun non-fiction books. She does, she picks a subject and she goes into it, she almost does like investigative reporter sort of things. She gets embedded in, she lives with these people, and she did a lot of stuff, um, with the, uh, astronauts at the, um, International Space Station, and also, and the people who were preparing for when they were planning on maybe doing, uh, expeditions to Mars. I think she wrote this in the late 90s, early 2000s, something like that. So it's, it's a little bit dated, but still very pertinent in a lot of ways. And she, um, interviewed a lot of the old, uh, astronauts that are still around and went into the science and broke it down for people in a very funny and accessible way. And there's a couple of things that came out. One of the things that we saw very strongly in this show is that Bill, if I'm remembering the pilot's name right, is very much that archetype that we see of the test pilot. There we've got a prototype of Tom Cruise's Maverick, Hal Jordan's Green Lantern from comic books. The, the test pilot who's fearless, who's a big, you know, I'm going to do it my way, kind of jerk and you, you love him, but you hate him at the same time and he's a blowhard. And one of the things that came out in, uh, Mary Roach's book after interviewing is that that is absolutely the type of person you need to start test piloting these things. They had the right stuff, right? The, you know, that was the term. They got the right stuff. They were all these like test pilots and, you know, fighter pilots and they were going up there and they needed that type of personality. Well, as soon as you start getting into having to work as a team for long periods of time in cramped quarters with no gravity and things affecting you, the right stuff is the absolute wrong stuff. And she has a whole chapter about the psychology of what type of person could actually live in a space station. And this is even when they, before they get to the point of like, yeah, you know, about 18 months is when people max out and that brings up the question, can we even as a species live outside of space? Is that something that's even possible? Uh, we, are we more like cells that when we get separated from our larger life form, it's going to slowly die. There's all these questions that scientists are asking now, but at that time period, we just had faith-based fears and hopes. We had the aspiration of maybe we can do this and we had the fears of maybe we can't and we see all these like mythic resonances coming back, but we really didn't know what the heck was going on. Now we've got more knowledge in our own aspirations and our own cautionary fears of maybe this isn't even possible, um, you know, uh, comes into play and complicates the way we would tell things because we don't have that child like innocence that we did in the 50s around it anymore. And it's, you're almost bringing up the, the story of hallucinatory orbit too, right? When it talks about what do we do in space, right? So that, that's another great, uh, classic that they did. I love the fact and in the stuff that I write and yeah, you can tell differently because the listeners, I write stuff in both them retro rockets and, um, wavefront. Um, I, I love coming up with these ideas, um, because it's holding a mirror up to the human race. All right, so when you have these, these very, um, important question, like AI, I've written a lot of stuff about AI, especially recently, it's going to be a show coming out just after Jeff's show, uh, coming out on Wednesday wonders is going, is going to get a lot of original programming. So if you aren't subscribed to Wednesday wonders or the mutual audio network feed and want to hear some of the stuff that we've been doing, you know, you should do that starting in July, things are going to start racking up in the middle of July. I guess I got some new intros. I need to record. Huh? Yeah. Well, yeah. There's going to be new stuff, which is kind of cool. So, uh, yeah, but that's, that's the thing is like who, the question remains if we changed, like I just watched, um, an interview with Perswell, um, and, uh, Bill Maher last week and the man terrifies Perswell, because he says in 2040, we're not going to be human beings. And he or going to be completely interfaced with the machine and, um, another religious belief. Yeah, it is. It's another religious belief. And he said that no one's going to do it, which means they're going to be forced to, which is, you know, goes back to an episode that Jeff recorded for me that I did called trans humanity and, uh, the whole, the whole aspect of what does it mean to be human and what are the things that we should hold on to and what are the things we should involve. And these are all push and push and pull points when it comes to a species. At what point does a species take over of its own evolution? And is that really what we're meant to do? Well, is there ever an example of that ever happening? Why do we think that's even possible, except for our own hubris again, we can do anything with our technology. Really? You really think we can? Well, let's see what happens because I don't think it's going to happen that way. Yeah. It's never, it never works out. There's, it was, I forget who said it, but it's like, there are no good solutions only trade off and it's sadly true, sadly true. It happened though, in the black hole movie, I stand corrected. So, I mean, you guys, that old things debunked from you guys in the black hole movie, you know, and, and who can, who can argue with that? Really shitty Disney movie. Yeah. That's right. That's right. I can't even name the robots in that movie. Here's an interesting thing when we're talking about all this doom and gloom. One of the things that when, when I was talking about the different sort of Greek literature of these strange visionary experiences of going up beyond the, the terrestrial sphere and interacting with intelligences greater than our own, one of the things that I think is interesting is that the term is called apocalyptic literature. Because an apocalypse was not originally about the end of the world. It was about a vision. It was a mystical vision. The most famous one is about the end of the world, the, the apocalypse of John, the revelation of John. Um, it's a revelation, it's a revealing. So. No, that, that literally means the, the, uh, the doom of the gods or the, uh, the judgment of the gods, but, um, that, that's a whole different thing. But no, the term apocalypse was actually a tight, there was a whole bunch of apocalyptic literature that came out of the Hellenic world with these Greek platonic, uh, philosophers who at the time, that meant something very different. It was an actual spiritual practice and they would have these visions and they'd write them down and that's what was going on. But a lot of them were about interacting with some consciousness beyond our own that was telling them something of like, Hey, if you want to live a better life or you should be aware of this or what this is, what the nature of reality really is, um, here's how it's going to end. Here's what's going on behind the scenes. All of that stuff is what was going on and it also then comes to a, another point which is that throughout history, humanity has always thought that the people that can achieve that type of enlightenment for the most part, it's not a universal thing. It's the rare person who will be able to do it. The average person is either going to think that someone who comes back with that vision is wrong, crazy, or well, I just got more important things to do. I got some fields to tell and, um, you know, some, some ale to drink and, um, yeah, good for you, man. You had that weird experience of the spinning, uh, lights and, um, and strange angel that came down to talk to you. Good for you. Okay. Now I think we need to start an etymology podcast and, and, and, and no, hear me out because I want to be the host of it because I can be the guy that's totally amazed at everything you say because I love the, I love, like, I don't know half the stuff you talk about and I listen and I go, Oh my God, I'm writing it down. I've seen them. And I got a bunch of linguist friends that are professional linguists and followers so that we can bring onto the show. There it is. Because I'm just an amateur piker here guys. Oh, I don't think so. If you're an amateur piker, I'm like a third grader. So it's, but you know, you mentioned the Greek theater and I love Greek theater and the thing that you just gave me a thought of, of, I think one of the great things in Greek theater was the Greek chorus. So, you know, so when Oedipus is up there and telling him he's great and, and they're like warning him, you know, Oedipus don't do this, you know, edit whatever they're, you know, they're, you know, they're the chorus is in, in, you know, Antigone, same thing. You know, Creon is, you know, kind of losing it. It's weird. Well, it's not really a trilogy, but it feels like a trilogy when they put it all together, you know, Oedipus, the king, Oedipus, the colonist and, and Antigone. But, you know, in the first two, Creon, well, Creon's not really in the second one, but in the original Creon, it's just nice guy. I'm just happy to be, you know, here. And then in the end, he's like, you need to, you know, listen to me or I'll kill you, which he does, but it's, it's the Greek chorus and it just, I don't know how to do this, but it gave me the idea of writing something that has kind of a Greek chorus in it, you know, and just telling this, you know, don't do this. I mean, you could do that with science fiction really easy, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you could do it all kinds of creative ways of it, and I just, I, the thing I love when you mentioned Greek theater, not to go too far away off the field, but it was always to me when I was teaching it or when I was directing it, it was always that the economy of language just just the, I mean, they weren't fooling around, they were whacking these plays out and they're short and, and they're just, here it is. And, and so any one of them, you know, and, and so to think about this whole idea of humanity, which is what it's all about, I think in the Greek theater, you know, don't do this, you know, don't do the right thing, you know, don't, don't have that hubris that Jack was talking about, you know, don't, you know, and this, this, this Greek idea about, you know, welcoming you and I forget the term for it, but you're gonna welcome all the visitors, you know, like, I mean, even when, even when Odysseus enters the cave, you know, he, he's like, you know, no, we're guests, you should treat us nicely, you know, you know, well, I was famous, it's kind of like, yeah, I don't think so, but that was a standard Indo-European thing with almost every Indo-European culture, there's a couple of things that are considered the greatest of goods and one is hospitality and the other one is generosity, not without wisdom and not without caution, but that was absolutely essential to a lot of their belief of what creates the, the body politic. That's interesting. So, and it, so it just, I don't even know what I'm talking about, I'm kind of thinking out loud in terms of, of taking that stuff of Greek theater and making it into some kind of side, I'm sure it's been done, you know, I'm making it into some kind of science fiction type thing and in, you know, but also this whole, that's whole idea about the cautionary tale about nuclear weapons that we've been talking about. I mean, you're, you're going back to how many shows and how many, you know, growing up, I remember there was shows on TV and, you know, first time ever saw a guy with a Geiger counter and it's going, you know, no, that's, you know, there's an, and you, or, or, you know, beneath planter to the eight, right, you know, the bomb on your right and, and all that and, and all, you know, just, it, it's so, it, the whole idea about nuclear weapons and rightly so, it so permeates the post 1940s, you know, culture for us, but, you know, because it's always on our minds, right, maybe not as much right now, I believe you know, it should be more so than when we grew up, they said, oh, yeah, they're more than we've ever been with, there's no question in, in, and also, remember special report, remember when that came, special report, it was done as a news report that an actual nuclear bomb went off from a terrorist action, but it wasn't, it was, it was very much like a fake version of a news report for that and it, everybody out kind of thinks that was done in the years and then they came back with another one and that was the end of the world, that was like a nuclear war was the end world and it was all done, like a live news cast, that was a point, yeah, or, or, you know, or something like, you know, Dr. Strangelove, right? Yeah, you know, where I live, you know, Slim Pickens rides the bomb down, and goes, but, but just to go back and I'm just kind of, it's being the consciousness here, but I have all these things, it prompted me to think of all these things that you talked about optimism, you know, in the 60s coming out of the 50s and, you know, I was a little kid, but Kennedy was elected president and there was this optimism that felt like in, in, and then the, I remember the astronauts and they were so, they were such rock stars, right, and all those guys, and they all drove the gold vets, right, Chevy gave them all vets, right? And of course, when I was growing up as a kid, you know, oh my god, of Corvette, you know, and, and, and I think they're gaudy now, but, but back then they were cool and, and, and these guys are driving around, they're convertible gold vets and they're all a good look in and, you know, and just the feeling of that early 60s, mid 60s, kind of optimism, which of course gets submarine by the Vietnam War and civil rights and all the real stuff that was going on, right? But, but there was, there was that happening and so, I think that, that good literature, good radio drama, good whatever reflects the time of the culture and this is reflecting, oh, yeah, we're going to go to outer space and we're going to do this and we're going to do this and this is years before we go to outer space in 1950, right? Oh, one of my 10 science fiction shows is for all mankind. Have you ever seen it? No, oh, um, it's, it's on Apple TV. It is phenomenal. That sounds really familiar. I just can't, phenomenal. I recommend everybody watch that. Yeah, what, what was the premise of that? Because I'm, it starts off with landing on the moon and everybody, they should keep showing, you know, all the people around and they're not happy about it. They're just uncomfortable about the person landing on the moon and even the reporter is not excited about it whatsoever. The way, and then they put in the flag and it's the Russian flag. And so it's, it's a parallel earth where the Russians made it to the moon first. So America ups their game and, and suddenly it's all about we have to be the Russians. We have to be the first ones to colonize them. We have to be the first ones to do this. And every season they go forward and they take real people that were there and they redo it. So like some of the females who tried to be astronauts who weren't allowed to be are allowed to be in the show because they're actually better astronauts. They found that women deal better with space effects than men, which was kind of cool, which kind of frustrated me because I was literally ready to write a science fiction story about that. When I first heard that, that women are better in space and what if I had a parallel world where there's like female astronauts and then I watched this show, I'm like, oh, I couldn't write as well as that. So anyway, it was really like seriously, I highly recommend to watch that show. If you can, and you ever got an Apple TV, you can get it for a month for yourself like that and go through that and go through severance. And those are the two best shows I've seen on television, those two shows. So something I wanted to mention about optimism, which I think also ties in with the idea of the Galactic Federation and some of our thoughts is that, you know, after World War II, we had a whole lot of optimism because, well, what the League of Nations became, or the League of, yeah, League of Nations or whatever became the United Nations, right? So we actually felt like, oh, we're able to make this global peace community. And so that probably tied in a lot with the idea of like, if we can do this after World War II, well, what could happen on a more larger scale, whether it be us or someone else, there is the theoretical possibility that's happening. Well, yeah, now there's, yeah, we're not really getting along with the United Nations. United Nations isn't getting along with each other. European unions having problems, you know, again, humanity again, huge large empires, the Pax Romana, all that, you know, they have their own lifespans and they don't die. And, you know, yeah, here I am with my, my noirish thoughts again. But, you know, hey, thanks, you ruined my whole day. No, no, no, it's true, though. It's so true that, you know, that optimism and, and of course, it's all on the surface of, you know, 1950s and we're moving forward and, you know, building highways and all that stuff and better living through chemistry. Yeah, exactly. Yes. With your test tubes and cyclotrons. I don't even know what a cyclotron is. I like the word though. And just keep your hands away from it. Yeah, yes, a lot. They can make me new ones. I've seen that in C-shoot. But at least they're hands. That's it. And, oh, by the way, have you ever read the C-shoot story by Isaac Asimov? No. And it just, it's really good. I just read it and they, and I should send you a link to it because it's, I think it's an interesting thing that to try and read when we do these, these radio dramas, to try and read the original work. Absolutely. It gives, there's another character in there that wasn't in the play. They cut him out and but, and I understand why they did it, but it's, it was just made me think of it that, you know, to read the original work in forms and I'm also curious and I'm sure you guys are too as writers of how the adapter in the case of C-shoot, which I forget if it was the efforts of the other guy, but how they read the story and how they adapted it. Like, because that's, that takes talent, you know, and, and it was really interesting what they did, but, you know, the whole idea of, of optimism and then, you know, I really think that in this country, Vietnam War was just the thing that at the end of the, you know, although it was going on earlier than that, the end of the 60s, you get a whole different kind of a, of feel and I think it reflects itself in the, in the, in the art. I think you get a lot of, of like, I just have a feeling like the Vietnam War and what happened there reflects things like, things like spaghetti westerns and, and things like that where you're feeling wild bunch. I, I just feel like, I just feel like they're, that, that thread kind of permeates through of, of, you know, the lack of optimism in the world. I don't know if that's true or not, but it's just a, I'm having all these ideas today. It's must be you love that with the awesome work. But, but, and I'm probably making no sense. You probably caught me right out of this whole thing, but it's just, it's just, it just seems to me like I love science fiction so much that it just, all these ideas just keep popping into my head. But, and I think maybe, I don't know that, that there's a, you know, in this particular show that there's all this optimism, you know, we're launching the RJX 88 or whatever it is. And then all of a sudden, well, that, you know, it's gone. And so you, you're taking that ride. And I think that, you know, I think that that mirrors the way that things happen in life. And, and you can relate to that. You know, like I'm so excited about this. And then it happens and you're like, you know, okay. Yeah, you know, um, so, yeah. Anything else anybody wants to say about any of the actors or anything else is, and there was Jeff Corey, who was a great, uh, stage actor and another, um, like, for those of us growing up in TV is one of those, like, uh, character actors that you saw in like every single cop show and TV show and radio shows like, Oh, that guy. And there was a couple of them in this as well. You know, there was an I, but I, I said it before, I, I thought, Charles McGraw stole the show in, in terms of performances. You know, the guy who played the astronaut, I can't forget his name, but, um... Love Joy, Frank Love Joy. Yeah. I think it was good. Yeah. I didn't think he was anything special in this. I have to point out that Jeff Corey, um, automatically his voice triggered into me from Star Trek. Oh, right. Remember the episode he was, uh, yes, he was in, oh God, I'm blinking on the name of it, but I did see it when I was doing research for the show and I'm sorry, loud binder. That's right. Yes. He was like, I forget what it's, he was the, uh, high advisor blassets or something. Yeah. So I'm just, I'm a huge star. Yeah. So I, uh, yeah, his voice, I knew that right away, but like, you're right. He's in a thousand different radio traumas without even knowing and you see him in television all over the place. So it was amazing to see him do his stuff. It's cool. Yeah. And another one was, I think Stanley Waxman, according to one of the things I saw, he wasn't listed on the credits, but he was listed in some of the internet stuff. Maybe it was on one of the other adaptations, but if he wasn't this one, um, he's another, like, you look up Stanley Waxman, you look at his face and go, Oh my God, you were in one day at a time and you were in this and that and the other in Barney Miller and all over the place. And Cyrano Jones in Star Trek with the trial. Yes. Exactly. Oh, that's who he was. Oh, no kidding. Yeah. I'd say the name didn't strike anything with that. That was a, that was a, I remember listening to an actor and they said, as, as you start to age, they're like, well, don't wait to get older to start character parts, start the character parts early and you'll have great career. And, and you look at these guys, like you just talked it and, and I was reading up on the guys, people in Seashoot and all the stuff that they were doing. I'm like, you know, it must have been really cool. You know, the agent calls up, yeah, I got a part for him, Bonanza. Yeah. Okay. You know, next week you're in, you know, whatever, the fugitive or, you know, and it just like, I don't love having all these jobs just walking in. Okay. Here's my lines. All right. I'll do it. And, and, but they have such, oh, I did a thing on Tony Randall. Oh, cool. Because we're doing the, a million dollar curse. I love a mystery for idea group cast. And so I, I'm throwing in little things about some of the actors. And I, and I didn't never realize Tony Randall, man, what a career that guy had. Well, it was Tony Randall and Don, right? No. Yeah, exactly. Ty yellow ribbon. And you didn't know that was him. Oh, come on. And, but you're looking at all the stuff that he did. And of course, probably his career loved a little bit. It, you know, when he, when he started going on the game shows and, you know, and then he came back strong after that, but it's just, you know, these actors, that life of, you know, what am I going to do next? And, you know, it's like, I just got to hope I got another job coming. Yeah. Somebody said that Jack Black, it's a shame that he became so popular because he had such a great job of playing character actors. Oh, yeah, character roles, should say. I jumped in. Yeah. They were so good, though. They were so good. You know, it was like, Oh, geez, I forget me. I'm getting old. He played the Philip Seymour Hoffman, right? Oh, right. Yeah. When I remember the first time I saw him was he played that character in Twister the first time I remember seeing him. And, and I remember sitting there with my son and we're watching Twister. And we both were like, who is that guy? He's freaking amazing. You know, and he's playing these character parts. And, of course, he becomes a big star and he's an amazing actor. I feel badly about, you know, what happened with him, but that, um, and his son, did you see his son was in liquorous pizza? No, I haven't seen that yet. Oh, it's, it's worth watching. Yeah. Plus all the, plus the Heim sisters are in it. So I have the budget, but, but I do know that Bill Paxton's son plays in the new sequel to Twister called Twisters. He's Bill Paxton's son is playing in Twister. Oh, I remember from Bill Paxton, was like an alien stone. He's like, game over man. He's another one, though. I'm like, what the hell is that guy? He's awesome. But now that I've gotten my head, the idea of Tony Randall singing "Taya Yellow Ribbon" around the old oak tree to Jack, to Jack Klugman and do it, like an odd couple routine. That would be great. But we must be reaching the end of our show now, if we're getting into this sort of stuff. Does anybody have any last thoughts about the outer limit or beyond tomorrow? No, we're getting into this one. Like I said, I love every aspect of it because it just screams 1950s science fiction opening you up to the ideas of us hitting space and space hitting back. I like that. Nice. Nice sleep, but oh man, that's a great way to end. That was perfect. You need to write something about that. Like Jack Ward, ladies and gentlemen. Yes. Wow. I feel so inadequate. I don't know the big words. I don't have like sayings like that. I gotta go. But you got the best hair of the three of us. That's true. Yes. Yeah. Great. Jeff, any last thoughts from you? Yeah, thanks for bringing this. I really enjoyed it. I love this story and I love, like Jack said, I won't quote him on his quote because I don't remember it anymore. But just the 50s feel to it. That just kind of like Mars is heaven. It's kind of like all those 50, 1950s sci-fi feel that I just absolutely love. And you know, just like all that scientific that sci-fi art from that time period, you know, of just amazing. So it's, and I like, and I like that. I'll say it again though. I liked the fact that, you know, the aliens were good guys. You know, it was like, you know, kind of like the Greek course thing, right? We're going to tell you that you should not do this. And instead of it always being, always being the bad guy, you know, it reminds me of the story I read where you're looking at it from the viewpoint of a character. And you're, you can commiserate with that character. You totally identify with that character. He's standing on guard. It's called the Sentinel or something. And he's on guard duty. And then he sees the enemy coming. And the enemy is a human. And you all this time, this guy's been like our perception of an alien, right? So you then you, so you have to go, you know, you have to kind of examine things. And again, that's what I like to do. I like to, to have it resonate with me. And, and when I'm listening to something, if I'm totally into it, and I'm not thinking, do I like this? You know, I didn't think of it at once. I was just like, this is really good. And it's, it's stuck with me. That whole idea has just really stuck with me. And so I hope our listeners enjoyed it. And we want to listen to some more in 1950s. So I thought right on. So one thing I just remembered, did you guys catch the Lovecraft reference at all? No, no, there's the part where love joy gets out of the, you know, stratosphere, whatever. And he's finally, you know, cruising at the 40 miles above any references, a color that no one had named before. And that, so we've got the Lovecraft story, the color out of space, which is a sentient color that no one can name because no one's ever seen it before. It's something that human eyes have never seen. And so I thought that was a, a little nod to, to Lovecraft's one of his more, you know, specifically science fiction stories, even though there's a horror element, because of course bad things happen when the color lands on Earth. But it's a, it's a color that's trapped in a meteorite that lands here. And of course, no one can really describe it because how do you describe a color that you can't, that you've never seen before. That's cool. And then one thing you just reminded me of that I thought of, and I'd written it down was, um, there's one part that he talked about space patrol, they imagine. And I'm thinking, hmm, is there a cross over here? And the other one was they, you know, we're the guardians of the galaxy. And, and so I had to look up, I said, when did Marvel come up with Guardians of the Galaxy? Like 1969 or something like that, and it's just like alliteration and it scans Guardians of the Galaxy. You know, it's great. And I said, I wonder if the, you know, Storm and Stanley read, you know, read this story. Guardians of the Galaxy, that's cool. I mean, I don't know that. I'm just like, they in it, but those two things popped up for me. But I love the color thing. I didn't, I didn't know anything about that. I don't know that story, but it sounds really there's actually a really good adaptation movie done. Richard Stanley did the direction. He also did Dust Double, which is a really great movie with a Nicholas Cage and Nicholas Cage is actually perfect in it. Really? But it's, it's, uh, it's a freaky film. Yeah. So be prepared for freakiness, but it's a color out of space. Yes. I just recently saw that. Yeah. A couple of years ago, it was, it was pretty freaky. And that was based on, on the Lovecraft story. Is it? Yep. Wow. And it's actually, it's a pretty, it's updated to a modern day, but it's a fairly faithful adaptation as far as Lovecraft adaptations go. So that's cool. And Jack, I'm glad you said recently and then said two years ago, because I'll say, yeah, didn't that just happen recently? And somebody will go, Jeff, that was the nineties. Exactly. Thank you. Yeah. I go, oh, well, feels recent. All right, Jack. So you're up next time, right? I am indeed. And I, I really wanted to do a Johnny Chase secret agent of space, which is another eighties show that came out of CBC, which you guys probably have never heard of before, but I grew up absolutely adoring it. But of course, because it's CBC, it's not for public domain. Somebody put it on Internet Archive. It's now been removed off Internet Archive. And not before I grabbed all the episodes. So if you're interested somewhere down the line, but let's be the dark alley somewhere and we'll do a trade out of our trunks. Exactly. But what, what I do have, and what I would love to do, and I've sent to you guys in the past, and I'd like to do now, is journey into space, Operation Luna episode one. And who knows, but if it doesn't get deeply into it, I might want to do episode one and episode two. It's 13 episodes from the BBC. It was one of our dear Bill Hallwig's favorite shows he kept rolling back to me. Have you listened to this yet, brother? Awesome. That BBC science fiction stuff was good. Yeah. Yeah. I know it's not old-time American radio drama, but it's still incredible stuff. Yeah. That's what we're doing. All righty. Well, that will be our next, our next episode. And thanks again to my, my two amigos. Thanks, Jeff billard, for coming over. Oh, you're welcome. Thanks for doing this. This was a blast. And thank you, Jack Ward. Thank you. And I don't want it to poop out. Apparently, that was a phrase they used in the show. Yes. Yes. I thought that was hilarious when he said that. Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up. The scientist looks out of like, what? And the amazing pilot, the best pilot in the world, that forgets to pull up his landing gear after he takes off. That's true. That's right. And I love the way he, I love the way he said it. You know, pulling up the landing gear might help. You know, sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. Is this guy really a pilot? That's right. You know, it's like, yeah, the poop line was so I'm so glad you said that because it was. I had to go back and listen. Do you really say that? Exactly. Like, you know, and just like it broke down, right? It's a really technical term. Yes, it is. Thank you, everyone. And we'll see you next time on Sonic Echo. Adios. Adios. Fine. [Music] This has been an electric Vykuna production. [Music] Thank you for listening to Sunday's showcase on the Mutual Audio Network. We invite you to continue the amazing audio tomorrow on Mutual with the Monday matinee. Our weekly series of dramatic theatrical classic eclectic and live radio dramas. You can subscribe to the full mutual audio network feed every day for the world's largest curated collection of audio drama or find the Monday matinee feed in your favorite podcast players. See you tomorrow at the matinee and thanks so much for listening. The mutual audio drama network where we listen and imagine together.