.Listen to This Week in Amateur Radio long enough and eventually you will begin notice some of the more unusual elements within the program, such as the Random Access Thought. And at some untimely point thereafter, you may also start to actually hear those short promotional announcements for the Random Access Thought and the little movies-in-sound pushing our custom TWIAR QSL cards, our This Week Blogs and Twitters, and our KXKVI podcast download site.
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Believe it or not, it may take as many man-computer hours to generate a 90 second promo as it does to develop a complete seven and half minute Random Access Thought or Random Access File segment. Coming up with fresh ideas for these mini-radio shows can be creatively challenging but on occasion, a simple storyboard idea may manifest itself and carry across multiple promos and even into the RATs themselves. Here's an example: Back last year, after we decided to start posting via Blogspot, I made the observation that George W2XBS had launched several preliminary versions of his blog before finally settling in on a specific custom page design, but several posts that he had published had subsequently disappeared. Why?
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George indicated that he was not happy with some of his written material and so deleted those, saying something to the effect: "I want to get it right the first time". BINGO! I cross-haired, locked and loaded as his passing thought passed on by.
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Thus, in a July 2008 TWIAR Blog proclamation, the 45 year old fail-to-launch, chain-smoking Cigman is plinking away at his keyboard when MNOAOS Zach asks: "Hey Cigman, whatcha doin?" Cigman says: "I'm working on my new blog!" Zach says: "How long have you been at it?" Cigman says: "About three hours!" "Wow, that's a long time!" says Zach. Says Cigman: "I want to get it right the first time!"
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In a follow up September 2008 pitch, the highly cylindrical TANK is busy at work lead-fingering (assuming he has fingers) his keyboard when Zach asks: "Hey TANK, whatcha doin?" TANK says: "BLOG!" Zach says: "How long have you been working on it?" TANK says: "THREE DAYS!" "Wow! That's a long time!" says Zach. Says TANK: "I WANT TO GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME!". The gag is running.
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In an upcoming promo for the Random Access Thought, Cigman is rehearsing his big one line as an intro for a RAT entitled "Now For Something Completely Different". Zach says: "Hey Cigman, whatcha doin?" Cigman says: "I've been rehearsing this line for tonight's big performance!" Zach says: "How long have you been practicing?" Cigman says: "About three weeks!" "Wow, that's a long time!" says Zach. Says Cigman: "I want to get it right the first time for opening night!"
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Then there's Cigman's sister Marilyn. There is an occasional pop-up theme which picks up on Marilyn's peculiar fascination with watching paint dry. When I did a RAT feature on non-directional aircraft radio beacons, the promo script called for Zach to stop by at Marilyn's house where she is feverishly painting the living room. Marilyn says: "I like to watch paint dry. I paint a wall and I watch it dry!" So later on, in another segment, when Cigman sees his sister watching a blank analog TV screen after the big switch to digital television, he makes the suggestion that she would do better watching paint dry. To which, in perky Pavlovian response, she says: "I like to watch paint dry. I paint a wall and I watch it dry!" And of course, she does just that!
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George was also able to provide yet another little gem for an inside joke that plays out in a TWIAR QSL Card offer that first aired this January. I was in QSO with George one day on the local 146.82 machine. I'd been bugging him to get a SONY PSP. His terse response was: "I'd would rather invest in a good pair of gym shorts". George said this because he has taken to daily visits to his local YMCA.
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BINGO! In the next QSL promo, when little kid Bix's vintage Hallicrafters S38 shortwave radio goes on the fritz and he runs to his Dad begging for a new receiver, Mister Nix sternly intones: "Well my Son, shortwave radios are very expensive! I would rather invest in a good pair of gym shorts!"
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There was an issue of continuity for another QSL promo which still occasionally airs. The story involves a somewhat incredulous scenario where Marilyn is doing time in the Big House. The scene opens with the sound of a large jail door sliding open and footsteps are heard as she makes her way to a payphone. She calls Pauly, Ricky and Bobby (presumably her associates in crime) to advise them of the new This Week in Amateur Radio QSL card "with the asteroids"(flag that thought) that she has secretly come into possession of.
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But it was the sound of the footsteps that was flawed and got noticed by at least one of our most valued WBCQ shortwave listeners. When I first outlined the piece, I had planned to do the voice of a La Cosa Nostra-style Goodfella making that outside call but I got lazy and decided to have Marilyn do the voice over instead, thinking to myself that it would be funnier. Since I had already sourced all the effects prior to the scripting, the sound of the footsteps were of a man's shoes. In fact, they were my shoes.
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As a sidebar, the first occasion where I needed footsteps was for the Random Access Thought entitled: "The Internet Tubes Are Real". The premise had me as the host, entering a service tunnel at Big City Cable, making my way to a main distribution Internet tube. I needed footsteps, so I put on my shoes, placed my cheap forty-nine dollar Radio Shack audio cassette recorder on the kitchen floor and took four steps. The footsteps were then loaded onto a hard drive, cleaned up and looped.
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Meanwhile, back at prison, it did actually occur to me that Marilyn's sensuous British dialect plus my man shoes were a sonic mismatch, but then I thought: "Who will notice? It's only a little commercial!" A week later, a postcard arrived at Box 30, Sand Lake, NY 12153 from Peter Bently of East Aurora, New York, who wrote: "It's a dilemma. In your promo for the new QSL card, Marilyn walks like a man". Peter further wrote: "I was going to suggest you change the sound FX, but I realized it's probably impossible to find a recording of Una Espia, sneaking around in her bedroom slippers. Oh well, perhaps Marilyn is more the Nancy Sinatra type".
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This oversight resulted in three consequences. First, the voice and effects mismatch was indeed observed. Second, the mismatch may have skewed one man's mind's eye view of just what kind of a gal Marilyn might actually be. And thirdly, in the end, the bit was even funnier because of the shoes!
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Going back to that flagged thought, when we first started issuing QSL cards, the job of creating and printing them was assigned to George's long-suffering wife Cheryl, who was running some kind of a MAC computer that could make a nice three by five picture and then copy it to the same size card stock. After two or three print runs, we decided we wanted something new so George got one of his news anchors to draft up a cool outer space scene showing the sun and the nine planets. He even went so far as to include the asteroid belt which you could barely see in the image. BINGO! The asteroids became the focus of the QSL card sales pitch. For well over a year, various characters in equally various QSL card promos extolling the virtues of having a custom QSL card with the asteroids in your personal collection.
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With these items top of mind, look elsewhere in this blog for "The Voices at -18 dB". That post, linked with this one, just goes to show what kind of nut cases are busy at work producing stuff for This Week in Amateur Radio!
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