The Overnightscape Underground

The script is one the strangest you will find in the whole of old-time radio.  This is far beyond the famous “Adam and Eve” skit that somehow banned Mae West from radio for a good 10 years or more.  It is way beyond “The War of the Worlds” or any of that ilk.  I do not consider myself an expert of old-time radio as there are just far too many episodes to hear out there but of the 10,000 or shows I have heard, nothing comes close to this particular Vic and Sade episode.

Was it funny?  I’m not really sure if it was funny or not.  It does not read “funny.”  As a matter of fact, it reads several different ways.

In the beginning, it must have been quite somber.  A two year child has died.  Not even in the soapiest of soap operas did  authors dare take a two year old baby and “kill” it, even or especially in 1932.  Yet, this is what happens in this episode.

Then was have Rush joking with his mother about how good she looks as she is about to go to the baby’s funeral.  I’m not suggesting in way, shape or form there is anything wrong with this but a look at the script when this happens shows clearly that Rush is prodding his mother almost to a blushing point with compliments about her beauty as she is about to step out the door for the baby’s funeral.  If nothing else, it’s quite odd.

The oddities continue as Rush prods his father with questions about the afterlife.  Vic is uncomfortable with these questions

Then there is the whole racial matter.  I’m not sure hoe to approach it or even how I see it.  It all boils down to 1932 being a far different time than 2013.  Rush wants to help his less-fortunate neighbors, but even the most open-hearted person can see that simply does it the wrong way in the script.  He doesn’t ask ahead of time, he’s got people sleeping in the bed behind the backs of his mother and father and most importantly, his mother is going to be shocked when she comes home to find them there (Sade is not the easiest person to trick nor appease.  Sade will be a bear when she finds out and Vic KNOWS this.)

So while this off script doesn’t really seem to be funny, it probably was very, very funny – so funny in fact that Rhymer chose to have the cast do it again less than a year after the first run on the air.