In some cases where we had established formats for regular pieces like Tales from the Days of Sail (salty stories about two sea dogs and an albatross), The Cave Men (an excellent section devised by Hank that necessitated nonverbal, preverbal, communication and kept you on your toes). In our longest running serial, Captain Bonnard and Captain Lafarge and Carolyne in Space, we often did better without scripts, just rough outlines. BL&C inSpace had the added characteristic that it required each of us taking turns doing each of the three voices as the next voice came up. BL&C in Space was based on a cassette tape letter and an old TV show. The cassette tape letter had come to me from a distant relative of my mother . On it was a copy of a tape received from the Polaris Foundation (or Institute) in Phoenix, Arizona (that I have since tried to get in touch with, unsuccessfully) on which was the voice of a spaceman advising earth about things in a slow nasal monotone: Greetings my fellow earth brothers. I am Llallah. (TWO BEAT PAUSE) I am speaking to you from five of your earth miles above the surface of your planet (TWO BEAT PAUSE) Today I have been asked to talk to you about what your earth scientists know little about but call, radio. (BEAT) For many years now the magnetic fields of your planet have been being monitored from our space ship... Thus would Llallah introduce the show, with a variety of lessons from space, going on for quite a while but ending nowhere. 24 |