Radio

The 50-50 Festival of the Arts was produced in response to the Reagan Administration's proposed 50% cutback in funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. This is the show's opening sketch...                        (2:29)

Generic News: Yesterday's news, today's news, tomorrow's news...

The Chickahominy Revue, was an hour long mixture of original comedy and music which aired for a thirteen week season each year from 1980 - 1983. Material included topical satire, ad parodies, running sketches and political commentary.  Broadcast on the Richmond, Virginia NPR affiliate (WRFK), the show's unique blend of dark gallows humor, absurdity and just plain silliness combined with music programmed to accent and underscore each weeks comedic themes made it a popular addition to the WRFK lineup. The program was powered by the Chickahominy Wireless Cooperative:  a group of professional actors, writers and voice-over talent who lined up each week to poke fun at politics, religion, pop culture and other bits of everyday madness.  The Chickahominy Revue was hosted and musically scored by my partner Clarke Bustard , 35-year music critic for the Richmond Times Dispatch and the current driving force behind  Letter V: The Virginia Classical Music Blog.  I functioned as co-writer, producer, director and sometime studio engineer.  Samples sketches appear below:

The Mouscatoids :  An homage to Orson Wells' Mercury Theatre and all those wonderfully bad 50's Sci-Fi B-Movies. Inspired by reports of radioactive mouse droppings discovered in the Three Mile Island main reactor  after the near nuclear core meltdown ... And...well, we all know what happens when little furry creatures meet radioactivity...                  (7:30)

Yellow Rain :  International reports of military testing in Cambodia and Afghanastan of a deadly new nerve agent / chemical weapon dubbed "Yellow Rain" gave rise to this ad parody...                   (1:07)

Radio Comedy Theatre
The Chickahominy Revue

Perpetual Motion:   And then there are all those late night 'amazing' music collection ads....                    (1:15)

The Big Squeeze:  Corporate greed and hostile takeovers. The multi-national Acquisition Game...                     (1:48)

Produced in the style of NPR's All Things Considered, At Random was a 30 minute bi-weekly in-house radio program created specifically for Best Products, the nation's largest catalog-showroom retailer.  The program featured soft Company news:  employee features, news on upcoming sales promotions, occasional bits of comedy, interviews with the Company CEO where he answered questions submitted by employees from every state, et al.  The show was played in more than 1500 locations.  During morning pre-opening set up times and evening clean up, At Random was piped into Showrooms and warehouses thru each location's overhead PA system.  It was also available throughout the day in employee break rooms.  At Random aired for more than five years.  No samples are currently available.

Corporate Radio
At Random

Craig Cauthen

Eric Dobbs

director

writer

producer

Tom Palmer

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