For SyFy Portal: 'The Sci-Fi Boys' Is A Must See For Students Of Fantasy Filmmaking

New documentary charts history of special effects in monster movies and science fiction films

If you are the least bit interested in the history of monster movies and science fiction films, you should see "The Sci-Fi Boys." Recently released on DVD by Universal, this documentary pays tribute to some of the most influential directors, producers and special effects artists in the history of fantastic filmmaking. In the process, it provides a potted history of science fiction films from French 18th century moving pictures right up to Peter Jackson's blockbuster "King Kong."

"The Sci-Fi Boys" was written, directed and co-produced by Paul Davids, a lifelong science fiction aficionado who may be best known to genre fans as the production co-ordinator and one of the writers on the 1980's animated series "The Transformers." Davids was also executive producer on the 1994 Showtime film "Roswell" and has co-written several "Star Wars" novels with his wife (and co-producer on "The Sci-Fi Boys") Hollace Davids, Senior Vice-President of Special Projects at Universal Pictures.

"The Sci-Fi Boys" gets its name ostensibly from a group of writers and filmmakers who are linked by a love for science fiction that they have shared since their youth. It's a title that can be interpreted in several ways, however.

On one level "The Sci-Fi Boys" acts as a tribute to several outstanding veterans of the science fiction film genre. Indeed, perhaps the major thread running throughout Davids' film is the debt all fans of science fiction films owe to Forrest J. Ackerman. He is credited with inventing the term 'sci-fi.'

If Ackerman's name is not as widely recognised today as it was, it is a sad indictment of our failure to reiterate his contribution to fantastic film. Yet Forry, as he affectionately became known, was not a filmmaker himself. He was the editor and writer of Famous Monsters of Filmland, a magazine that ran from the 1950s through the 1980s. It was dedicated to celebrating the work of pioneering amateurs and professionals in special effects and make-up.

Much of the early part of Davids' documentary celebrates the influence of Forry and Famous Monsters. In the process Forry gives credit to his sources of inspiration. These include George Pal, with whom Davids himself worked on an aborted version of "The Hobbit." Davids also spends some time examining the effect of Ray Harryhausen's films on later generations of filmmakers. He includes marvellous footage of Harryhausen's early work and of the man himself receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. "The Sci-Fi Boys" also acknowledges Harryhausen's debt to Willis O'Brien.

Completing the triumvirate of genre veterans and good friends on which Davids focuses is writer Ray Bradbury. Bradbury's tales continue to be adapted into movies (such as last year's "A Sound of Thunder") and he wrote the story on which "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" (1954) was based. Harryhausen did the stop-motion animation for that film. In "The Sci-Fi Boys" Bradbury recounts the bond the two forged in their younger days.

"Ray Harryhausen and I made a pact, promising to grow old and never grow up, and to keep the pterodactyl and the Tyrannosaurus rex forever in our hearts, and lo, it happened!" Bradbury said.

On a broader level, "The Sci-Fi Boys" pays tribute to all movie magicians who have contributed to genre filmmaking throughout its history. The film contains specially conducted and archive interviews with some of the best directors, effects artists and model makers in the business. Peter Jackson, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Roger Corman, John Landis, Stephen Sommers, Dennis Muren, Rick Baker, Bob Ducsay, Steve Johnson, William Malone, Donald F. Glut, Bob Burns and film critic Leonard Maltin all appear.

Links with Ackerman, Harryhausen and Bradbury are never far away, however. Many of those listed above credit their enthusiasm for fantasy films to Famous Monsters or Harryhausen's creations. Davids, himself, won a Famous Monsters amateur film contest for a short monster movie entitled "Siegfried Saves Metropolis." In one of the special features on the disc he discusses how he financed that from weekly allowances with his friends Jeff Tinsley and Bill Goodwin.

Footage from "Siegfried Saves Metropolis" is also included on the DVD, as is surviving material from films that other contributors made in their youth. These include "Son of Tor," which was made by director, writer and actor Donald F. Glut and obviously inspired by "King Kong," Then there is "2002: A Space Catastrophe," which Fred Barton created in junior high, and "The Monster," a take on "Frankenstein" by the then 17-year-old Bob Burns.

Thanks to Burns' love of fantastic film he now owns the only surviving armature of the original "King Kong." Barton's affection for the genre, meanwhile, led to him restoring the original Robby the Robot from "Forbidden Planet" (1956) and "The Invisible Boy" (1957). He now builds life-size replicas of famous movie robots for a living.

Burns' and Barton's stories capture the spirit of "arrested adolescence" that underlies a love of science fiction, according to director John Landis. In Davids' film that sentiment is nicely captured in Brian Lambert's songs, particularly "You Have Sparked a Dream" and "Do You Remember?"

While "The Sci-Fi Boys" explores the contributions of particular people to science fiction filmmaking, it also recounts how special effects and make-up artists have obtained public recognition as the effects budgets of Hollywood movies have exploded. There is a sadness associated with that progress, however. Even Peter Jackson, who has perhaps done more than any other director to demonstrate the potential of computer graphics, reflects nostalgically on the old ways of doing things with models and make-up.

There are parallels in those sentiments with the history of the Sci-Fi Boys themselves. As "skinny little geek kids" (another Landis phrase) they were inspired by 1950s B-movies and Famous Monsters magazine. They have since made successful careers out of their hobbies and now work with million dollar budgets and cutting edge equipment. Yet they evidently love what they do as much as ever.

When Davids' film was finished I was left thinking that it is that appreciation of imagination, as much as anything, that defines a Sci-Fi Boy. At its most general level, therefore, the film could be a tribute to anyone whose close encounters with fantastic films has inspired them to be creative.

"The Sci-Fi Boys" has been released by Universal Studios Home Entertainment and is available from Best Buy in the United States. More information can be found on the website http://www.pauldavids.com/sci_ficomp.html

Michael Simpson is a writer and science fiction fan living in Canada.

(This article was published on the website SyFy Portal on April 23, 2006)

For The Bryological Times: Filmmakers Miniaturise Moss

Why would anyone want to make miniature moss? Isn't the green stuff small enough already? Apparently not for the makers of the recent Hollywood blockbuster "King Kong." The film tells the fictional story of the discovery of a giant gorilla on a remote oceanic island. Much of the action takes place in a prehistoric jungle, which was recreated in the studio at a reduced scale for some scenes. This verdant setting was made of model trees and shrubs, landscape features such as fallen logs and miniature moss.

Real moss was not an option presumably because it would have been at the wrong scale compared with the other forest plants and would have dried out too rapidly under the studio lights. Instead the model makers employed a technique used to produce surfaces on a range of items including upholstery, carpeting and greetings cards. Called "flocking," the method involves the application of tiny synthetic fibres (flock) to an adhesive-coated surface using an electrostatic charge. Flock fibres can be just a few millimetres long and are ideal for creating the appearance of tiny shoots.

The miniature moss for "King Kong" was made by the model crew at Big Primate Pictures Limited, a company set up for "King Kong." Jenny Morgan, who works for Weta Workshop, another company that contributed to the film, said that the filmmakers purchased bags of pre-coloured flocking and attached it to Dacron, a proprietary polyester.

"The organic quality [was] then enhanced in places by burning some of it with a gas torch," she said. "Then the combination of other departments input such as lighting, physical special effects and of course the director of photography and camera crew, make for convincing genuine moss."

"King Kong" was directed by Peter Jackson whose previous credits include the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Fans of those movies might recall a climactic scene in the first film in that series in which a member of the Fellowship of the Ring dies on a bed of pleurocarpous moss at the base of a tree. That time the stuff was real.

Jackson's new film doesn't mark the first time that flocking has been used by the entertainment industry to make moss. The 1980s popular superhero series "Masters of the Universe" included a character called MossMan. As his name suggests, he was made of moss. When American toy company Mattel decided to issue a model of the character, they created his mossy look by coating him in green flock.

The making of miniature moss for "King Kong" was mentioned in a video diary initially available on the internet at www.kongisking.net.

(This article was published in Issue 118 (January 2006) of The Bryological Times, newsletter of the International Association of Bryologists.)

For SyFy Portal: 'Hey, I Know That Voice!'

Bob Hastings talks about acting in 'X Minus One,' 'Superboy,' 'Batman' and more

Bob Hastings is a genre veteran. Yet, you are more likely to know this actor's voice than his face. Although he has worked in many genres, Hastings has featured in several innovative radio and television science fiction shows. He celebrated his 80th birthday in 2005 and was happy to tell SyFy Portal about his career. It all began with a song.

"I think it was about 1935 or the beginning of 1936," Hastings told SyFy Portal's Michael Simpson. "A teacher heard me sing in school at an assembly and he thought I sang well enough that I should be on radio. So I started singing radio shows and from there...there was a newspaper called 'The Daily Mirror' and they had a children's show on WMCA in New York and I sang on that...for maybe a couple of years. Then I went over to NBC and that was before the networks split - it was all one, NBC and ABC was one - and there was a show on Sunday mornings, 'Coast to Coast on a Bus.'"

"Coast to Coast on a Bus" was a children's radio show that helped to launch the careers of several performers that would became well known. Among them was Anne Francis, who genre fans might remember in the 1956 science fiction classic "Forbidden Planet" and two segments of the original "Twilight Zone," "The After Hours" and "Jess-Belle."

Bob's break in acting came in pre-war soap operas, but in 1943 he joined the Air Corps and became a navigator on B29s. After he left the service he started on the popular radio comedy "Archie Andrews." The show was based on the "Archie" comic books and Hastings was in it for 10 years. In 1949 he also appeared on television in "Captain Video and his Video Rangers," which featured his younger brother Don.

"I did like a four-week series but my brother played the Video Ranger," Hastings said. "I did one set-up, one storyline where I said I was his brother, which I really wasn't according to the show."

"Captain Video" was broadcast by the DuMont Network from 1949 to 1955. It was the first science fiction space adventure series on television, according to The Museum of Broadcast Communications. The titular character was a heroic inventor who battled evil on Earth and in space. Don was only 15 when he first played The Ranger and would later spend over 40 years on the soap opera "As the World Turns." He also recently appeared in the low budget science fiction film "Decoys," which was written and directed by his son Matthew.

In 1950 Bob appeared as a guest on another futuristic show, "Tom Corbett: Space Cadet." It was based on a novel by Robert Heinlen and, like "Captain Video," was popular with children. Three years later Hastings signed up to "Atom Squad." Broadcast from Philadelphia from July 1953 to Jan. 1954, this largely forgotten NBC series consisted of 26 stories divided into 15-minute daily episodes. Clearly inspired by Cold War paranoia and fear of the atom bomb, it concerned a small group of scientists battling enemy agents, mad scientists and experiments gone awry.

"['Atom Squad'] was futuristic when you think about how we were using computers and [technology] to solve mysteries, murders or whatever it was," said Hastings. "Bob Courtleigh played the lead [Steve Elliot] and I played [Dave Fielding]. We were like buddies...He was the star and I was his second banana."

The science fiction element in "Atom Squad" came not only from the futuristic way in which technology was portrayed but also in the occasional form of aliens and flying saucers. Along with "Tom Corbett" and "Captain Video" it was groundbreaking not only because it was one of the earliest genre shows but also because it was made when TV was still broadcast live.

"I don't know how we all survived," Hastings said. "I don't think I have ever worked on any show, radio, TV, movies or anything that I wasn't nervous. When I think of how nervous you were on live TV, because if you made a mistake you might never work again...It was a crazy time."

Live TV was like theatre in that sets sometimes had to be changed during the show. Also, there was only one take; if actors messed up, they had to carry on regardless. Hastings recalled one occasion when the absence of props during dress rehearsals almost ruined a scene in "Atom Squad" in which Elliot and Fielding were escaping from a prison camp.

"Courtleigh was supposed to have wire cutters, and when we rehearsed it he would say, 'Okay. Snip, snip; snip, snip; snip, snip," Hastings said. "When we got on the air he did the same thing. While he was cutting it with the wire cutters he was saying 'Snip, snip; snip, snip,' and I laughed, and the bad guy who was with us laughed and leaned against a phoney tree. And it went back and forth."

Despite such goofs, "Atom Squad" didn't cost Hastings his career. Throughout the 1950s he had supporting roles in several television series. He would make his mark on the history of science fiction in another medium, too, after he was cast in the acclaimed radio anthology series "X Minus One."

"Well, I was working at NBC/ABC and I think it was on NBC most of the time," said Hastings. "From working there, doing 'Archie [Andrews]' and doing other shows [such as 'Five-Star Matinee'] the directors would know you and then they'd hire you to do 'X Minus One' or whatever they were doing."

"X Minus One" ran from 1955 to 1958. It was the successor to another NBC anthology series, "Dimension X," and Hastings is credited with appearing in over 30 episodes. Some were performed live, but later ones were recorded, said Hastings. Apparently that didn't always relieve the pressure to avoid mistakes, however.

"Originally I don't think they were put on tape, they were put on discs," said Hastings. "That used to be funny because everybody would look at you like, 'Don't louse this up.' Now, when you went to tape, you can tape it in, do pieces whenever you want, do a scene over and put it in. But you couldn't do it when we had the old 78 discs. But most of the actors you worked with were very, very good, unless somebody had a girlfriend or something that they wanted to give a job to, and then you'd sweat, trying to get through a show."

Being an anthology series, "X Minus One" didn't have continuing characters. Hastings therefore had to prepare for a different role in every episode he appeared in. And he usually didn't have much time in which to do it.

"I might even get a call on Monday that I was doing one Wednesday night or Thursday night," Hastings said. "First you'd go and they'd tell you who you were playing. Of course, you never saw the script until you went to the studio. And then you'd sit down and mark your script...Sometimes you'd read it on the mic. to get all the sound in and then you'd do a dress rehearsal and do the show. In later days, you went through it once and taped it."

The limited technology available then meant that everything had to be done at the same time. Typically there were two microphones in the studio and two actors would stand either side of one, said Hastings. That was no problem, but getting the sound effects in on time could be a different story, he said.

"The sound is important, because it had to be eerie and it had to come in right when it was supposed to," said Hastings. "Other things you can get away with, but...when they say listen to that sound...and it ain't there, you say, 'Wait a minute.'"

Timing wasn't the only issue. You couldn't get collections of weird noises off-the-shelf so the sound-effects people had to be inventive.

"There were all kinds of things they would do," said Hastings. "They might even use...a saw, somebody who plays the saw, and if you take a saw and [flex it], that would be one of the sounds and they'd fool around with different things."

The scripts for many episodes of "X Minus One" were adapted by George Lefferts and Ernest Kinoy from stories by writers such as Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlen. Lefferts and Kinoy also wrote some original tales. The imagination in the scripts impressed Hastings.

"It was so far ahead of its time," said Hastings. "I mean, what we did they are now doing in real life...It's amazing the future sight that writers had."

Hastings also said that some of the best actors he worked with were on the radio. That was because they had to convey everything by voice, he said.

"[On film] if a guy's 6ft-8 and he can't act and he says, 'I'm going to kill you,' you look at him and say 'Oh God, he can do it,' whereas in radio you had to just look at the guy and say [it]...just by your voice," said Hastings. "I can remember people saying to me, 'Oh my gosh, look at movies,' - I'm talking about 'Frankenstein' and all that kind of stuff - I said, 'Hey, there's nothing scarier than being in your bed as a kid and listening to [the classic radio series] 'Lights Out' or 'Inner Sanctum.' And when these actors are good and you know there's a snake coming down into the room and, oh boy, you feel it. And you see it."

"X Minus One" ended at a time when radio's popularity was giving way to that of television. Consequently Hastings' resumé was dominated thereafter by small screen productions. In 1962 he was cast as a regular in the television sitcom "McHale's Navy." The following year he appeared in the "Twilight Zone" episode "I Dream of Genie." "McHale's Navy" ended in 1966 but Hastings soon landed another regular role, which provided a new outlet for his vocal talents. Despite being over 40, he was cast as the young Clark Kent in the animated adventures of "Superboy." This Filmation series was sandwiched between two episodes of the CBS show "The New Adventures of Superman" and allowed Hastings to occasionally play other parts, too. His vocal versatility was clearly a major asset

"[Superboy] was the lead," said Hastings. "The whole thing was built around him. And we used to once in a while double. I would play an old man or something. There was a rule that they had that you could do two parts, I think, or you could do a lead and two other small parts. That was another thing in the latter years of radio, if you could double, you got a hell of a lot more work, because they could hire less actors and it would cost them less money."

Superheroes would dominate Hastings' genre output thereafter. "The Adventures of Superboy" ran for another two seasons as part of "The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure" and "The Batman/Superman Hour," and between 1967 and 1982 Hastings featured in episodes of "Batman," "Wonder Woman," "The Incredible Hulk," "The Greatest American Hero," and another animated series, "Challenge of the Super Friends." He also appeared in an episode of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" ("The Werewolf") and some of the most popular television series, TV movies and theatrical releases of the 1970s and 1980s (including having regular parts in "All in the Family" and "General Hospital"). Then, in 1992, Hastings got a major role in an animated superhero series that was to revitalize that genre and give him work into the new millennium and on two new entertainment media: "Batman: The Animated Series."

The series, later re-titled "The Adventures of Batman and Robin," featured Kevin Conroy as Batman and Hastings as his ally Police Commissioner Jim Gordon. It was regular work for Hastings, but things had changed since the days of "Superboy."

"The 'Superboy' series we did on mics like we did radio shows," Hastings said. "I loved, when we did radio, [that] you're looking at the actor. Even though you're reading it, you've got the guy right in front of you and you're talking to him. The way you did ['Batman'] they have you sit down [in] your own little booth. I mean, it would be open but you couldn't see the guy beside you because they had to have that cut off so that they could do all the different channels...Now that, to me, is not going to make it a great show in my opinion, because you are not playing off the actor whose voice and intonation help you with what you are going to do."

Despite Hastings' reservations, "Batman" was a hit. It ended in 1997 and was soon followed by another series, "The New Batman/Superman Adventures." Hastings returned for that and played Gordon in the movie spin-offs "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm" (1993), "Batman and Mr. Freeze: SubZero" (1998), "The Batman/Superman Movie" (1998) and "Batman: Mystery of the Batwoman" (2003). When Warner Brothers made a series of animated shorts for the internet in 2002 called "Gotham Girls" his voice went online, and he also got to do the video games "Batman: Vengeance" (2001) and "Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu" (2003).

The animated Dark Knight was reworked in 2000 in "Batman Beyond" and again in 2004 as "The Batman." But there was no place for Hastings in these shows. The productions he did work on left him with fond memories, though, especially of one particular co-star.

"Mark Hamill played the Joker in 'Batman' and he was wonderful," Hastings said. "I thought he was terrific. He, to me, was the best on the show whenever we did one with the Joker...He was so good. The other people were good. The guy who played Batman was very good. But Hamill I think, just whenever he was on he just stole the show for me."

Hastings' remarkable acting career has allowed him to work in many different media. He is emphatic that radio was his favourite, but everything was fun to do, he said. And he would act again if the right part came along.

"I didn't make up the line, but I use [it] whenever I've been asked about acting," said Hastings "I think this is such a wonderful way to make a living, if only because my answer is, can you think of spending your life playing cops and robbers and getting paid for it? All we do as actors is what we did as kids."

Bravo, Bob Hastings.

Michael Simpson is a writer and science fiction fan living in Canada. You can reach him at msimpson@syfyportal.com. He would like to thank Sean Dougherty of Friends of Old Time Radio for his help in setting up this interview.

(This article was published on the website SyFy Portal on November 18, 2005)

For SyFy Portal: Writing The Future For Radio

Hollywood writer and producer George Lefferts discusses his work on the 1950s radio series 'Dimension X'

George Lefferts is one of the most prolific writers to have worked in Hollywood. He has won five Emmys, two Golden Globes and numerous other awards for journalistic writing and for television shows he has written and produced. He is probably best known to genre fans for his work on the 1950s radio anthology series "Dimension X" and "X Minus One." He recently spoke to SyFy Portal about these shows.

"I didn't aspire to be a writer, but I always wrote," he told SyFy Portal's Michael Simpson. "Looking back, even in grammar school I edited the school paper. Then in high school I edited the high school paper and the yearbook for my class. In college I edited the college paper and wrote a lot of stuff for them."

Born in Patterson, New Jersey, in 1921, Lefferts studied for a BA in Engineering at Drew University before transferring to the English program at the University of Michigan. While there, he studied poetry under W.H. Auden. After that he served in World War Two, first as a public relations officer for an Army psychiatric hospital and then transferring German POWs from North Africa to prison camps in Texas. After the war ended, his writing career began to take off.

"I didn't intend to be a writer but when I got out of the Army I had two choices," Lefferts said. "I was already married. I had a chance to go to medical school, which was my first love actually, and I just decided I didn't have time to do that. I wasted four years in the war and so I sat down and wrote, which I knew I could do because I had always done it. And then I got to really like it."

Lefferts locked himself in his mother-in-law's apartment, he said. There he wrote a tongue-in cheek article called "Violence in Radio," which he sold to Esquire magazine. He also wrote an epic poem, and a script for radio. It was the latter that got him his break in Hollywood.

"At that time NBC had a drama script department and I got a call from a guy named Richard McDonough," Lefferts said. "He said he had just read the script I sent in and he thought it was very good and [asked], 'What was I doing?' I said, 'Looking for a job,' and he said, 'Well, you have a job'."

As an apprentice writer at NBC, Lefferts met Ernest Kinoy. The pair forged a successful partnership as radio scriptwriters, particularly after NBC asked them to help create the science fiction series "Dimension X." Lefferts was already no stranger to science and science fiction. When he was starting out he read Ray Bradbury voraciously, he said. He also got "good fodder" for "Dimension X" from some earlier NBC assignments.

"I remember being sent down to wherever they were working on [the first big computer]," Lefferts said. "It might have been Trenton, New Jersey… It took up one full floor of a building that was a city block long. They [also] sent me down to Baltimore to do a mock atomic bombing of a city that they had built down there to train civil defense workers. Right after the war this was, 1947 or so…and of course at the time it was all live broadcasting. We had arranged for some B-29 bombers to come up from an airbase in Virginia and…we would put the cameras on them as they came up over the horizon… It was a big operation; they had probably more than a thousand workers come from Washington to be volunteers to help us. And we cued the bombers and the show started and the announcer was standing in the middle of the city and the bombers didn't show up. They didn't get our radio signal. And at the very end of the show, when he's standing out there in the open [and] saying, the line I wrote was, 'And peace finally comes to Maryland,' the technical director says in my headphones, 'Here they come,' [and] the bombers came thundering over the city."

Three years after that "Dimension X" had its premiere. It was among the first 'serious' science fiction anthology series to be broadcast using a mass medium and it predated "The Twilight Zone" by nine years. Its failure to become as well known as its televised counterpart only reflects radio's relaxed grip on our memory; the show was popular then with listeners and critics. It imposed heavy demands on Lefferts and Kinoy, however.

"We had less than a week to do each show," said Lefferts. "And we had to keep coming up with them. The show was on every week. So, sometimes I would work by myself; sometimes Ernie and I would sit down and talk over something he was doing or I was doing and we managed to roll out a lot of scripts."

Between them, Kinoy and Lefferts wrote over 40 scripts for "Dimension X." Many were adapted from works by well-known science fiction writers, including Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov and Kurt Vonnegut. Lefferts made a point of calling the authors to get their feedback. He also tried to stick as closely as possible to their original work.

"I didn't want to distort it," Lefferts said. "There were times when you would just have to do it. Sometimes the material just didn't lend itself and you had to do some other things but generally, especially with people like Bradbury who wrote so well, I tried really to be true to what their intent was."

Lefferts and Kinoy also wrote some original scripts for "Dimension X." Lefferts said he found that easier, but his inspiration often came from desperation.

"I had to come up with stuff and there was just no fooling around," said Lefferts. "I would take some crazy notion and develop it. I remember looking up at the moon one night when I had to do a script and I developed a script called 'The Man in the Moon.' It was about transporting Earth people to the Moon to work as pretty much slave labor in the mines on the moon. Anything would suggest an idea."

Listeners, NBC executives and authors weren't the only people that Lefferts was trying to please. Censorship was rampant in those days, he said.

"There were restrictions that people wouldn't believe today," said Lefferts. "We could not use the word 'crazy' for example. It was not politically correct. We certainly could not use any sexual references, although I managed to get around that with a show I did about a robot. I can't remember the name of it, and the last line, the robot comes into his mistress and I remember I wrote, 'Oil me, Lola,' which was about as sexy as you could get on radio in those days."

In addition to restrictions imposed by censors, Lefferts had to deal with challenges specific to writing science fiction for radio. By definition, the genre includes elements that are not part of everyday experience. Lefferts' scripts had form images of these things in listeners' minds and still generate dramatic momentum.

"It's pretty tough to visualise a space ship, you know, hurtling through space or what aliens look like…and that sort of thing," said Lefferts. "But somehow we were able to work around it without being too descriptive in narrative. I always tried to avoid narration. I thought that narration indicated a failure in my ability to make the characters come alive and visualise things. So most of it was dialogue."

Lefferts work wasn't done when his script was turned in, either. It was incumbent upon a writer to go to rehearsals because scripts might require revisions, he said. They may be too long or too short, and sometimes directors or actors would ask for changes. Besides, they were his "babies" and he "didn't want to see them screwed up too much," he said.

Among his favourite scripts was his original story "Perigi's Wonderful Dolls" (also broadcast as "Marionettes, Inc."). First aired on Aug.4, 1950, it was about a young girl who borrows a sinister doll from a shop in Washington D.C. It ends with her father apparently killing the shop's proprietor. But like the best "Twilight Zone" stories, there is a twist: the only real doll is the proprietor and the 'fake' dolls are evil aliens. Another of Lefferts' favourites was inspired by some of his more down-to-earth writing.

"I used to write the dialogue for the Macy's Day Parade every Thanksgiving and I took my kids to see it," Lefferts said. "When I was trying to get an idea for 'Dimension X' it occurred to me, what if the [parade] was an excuse for Martians to appear and take over?"

That idea became "The Parade," which first aired on Sep. 25, 1950. It tells the dark tale of a publicist who is paid a large sum of money to organise the title event, which he believes is meant to advertise a new film. He discovers too late that the marchers have conquest in mind. Other favourites of Lefferts include some adaptations, two of which were inspired by poetry rather than prose.

"'Nightmare' was a Stephen Vincent Benét poem," said Lefferts . He wrote a series of them: 'Nightmare One,' 'Nightmare Two,' 'Nightmare Three,' and the one that I did I believe was 'The Revolt of the Machines.' I remember one line in which a 5th Avenue bus had a broker pined to the steps of the 5th Avenue library."
Benét was a renowned poet who had won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1929 and 1944. He had also written the short story on which the 1941 fantasy film "The Devil and Daniel Webster" was based. Another Lefferts script, "There Will Come Soft Rain," was based on a Ray Bradbury short story, which, in turn, was inspired by a poem of that name by another Pulitzer Prize winner, Sara Teasdale.

"That was a rather nice one," Lefferts said. "I did that as a companion piece to Ray Bradbury's 'Mars is Heaven'."

"Dimension X" finished its run in Sept. 1951. It wasn't Lefferts' only contribution to science fiction at the time, though. Another Old Time Radio series, "Lights Out," had moved to television in 1946 and become a regular series in 1949. Lefferts wrote one of the most popular episodes, "The Martian Eyes," which was first broadcast in Oct. 1950. It starred Burgess Meredith as a man who could identify Martians on Earth with the help of enhanced vision.

After "Dimension X" Lefferts and Kinoy worked together writing radio scripts for, among other things, NBC's "Rocky Fortune" (1953-54), an adventure series starring Frank Sinatra, and "Dr. Sixgun" (1954-55), which was a western. In 1955 NBC commissioned a new science fiction anthology series, "X Minus One." That series ran until 1958 and scripts (and some shows) from "Dimension X" were used during its run. Although Lefferts couldn't recall writing any new material for "X Minus One," its success was a further tribute to his love of science fiction and his rapport with Kinoy.

"We really enjoyed working together," Lefferts said. "We did have a lot of fun. We would throw out some outrageous ideas and if they caught fire we would develop them. And sometimes they were just too ridiculous and we would just sit there and laugh and try and come up with something else."

In 1958 Lefferts became a producer and writer of films for the Department of State in Washington D.C. He would later produce at ABC, Time-Life Films and back at NBC. His work would include the science fiction television film "Alien Lover" (1975), in which Kate Mulgrew (Captain Janeway in "Star Trek: Voyager") made her TV debut. Other writing and producing credits include award winning dramas and documentaries and acclaimed plays and stage musicals. Radio remains his first love, however, and he recalls his genre work with particular fondness.

"It was just the best time I've had in my life as a writer," Lefferts said. "Doing science fiction gives you so much freedom. It's so challenging also, and its fun. And also there's an element in it of trying to predict the future, and actually doing it sometimes. I think most of the great advances we have today would have been challenged as being impossible even 25, 30 years ago."

Radio shows like "Dimension X" remain popular because they appeal to the imagination, he said. That popularity might not have benefited him as much as it should - he has tried unsuccessfully to get residuals from some companies that were syndicating and selling recordings of shows he wrote - but the longevity of his work has produced pleasant surprises.

"I was working on a spy movie in Berlin," Lefferts said. "And the bell hop took me up to the room [in the Berlin Hilton], turned on the radio to show me how it worked and here on German radio in Berlin the first thing I heard was, 'Written by George Lefferts.' I thought it was a joke. And then it said, 'This had been a presentation of Armed Forces Radio in Berlin.' I think it was a science fiction show, one of the 'X Minus One's that I wrote."

It is reassuring to know that the work of George Lefferts, Ernest Kinoy and other writers who helped to bring serious science fiction into the mainstream still has a place on the airwaves.

Michael Simpson is a writer and science fiction fan living in Canada. You can reach him at msimpson@syfyportal.com. He would like to thank Sean Dougherty of Friends of Old Time Radio (http://www.fotr.net/) for his help in setting up this interview.

(This article was published on the website SyFy Portal on February 28, 2006)

For SyFy Portal: Hearing is Believing

Celebrating science fiction audio drama

With the availability of hi-tech special effects, television and film might seem to be the ideal media for dramatising science fiction stories. Once upon a time, however, there was only radio. In the age of computer graphics it has become an underappreciated source of fantastic entertainment. Yet, radio drama in that genre has a long history and a bright future.

The pre-television days of the 1930s were the Golden Age of radio drama. The so-called Old Time Radio Shows of that period were many and varied, and they included some familiar names from science fiction. "Buck Rogers" and "Flash Gordon" are fondly remembered as campy movie serials, but before appearing on film they were extremely popular on radio. Their early audio adventures, which began in 1932 and 1935, respectively, were cheesy by today's standards, but their cast and crew were pioneers of radio.

From the same period, the genre also produced perhaps the most famous radio event in history: Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre production of "War of the Worlds." Aired in 1938 under the title "Invasion From Mars," the show played on the fears of Americans jittery about an impending war in Europe. Welles presented the story in the form of news bulletins that interrupted "regular" programming to keep audiences up to date with the fictional Martian invasion. Evidently it was too convincing for some people, who took to the streets in panic.

Two years after the fake Martian landings, "Superman" arrived to save the world. Beginning in 1940, the Mutual Broadcasting Company's "The Adventures of Superman" went on to establish some of the mythology surrounding the character, including the famous exclamation, "It's a giant bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!". The series also introduced Perry White, editor of the "Daily Planet" and photographer Jimmy Olsen. Later episodes were notable as morality plays, some of them aimed at the Klu Klux Klan. The series ended in 1951.

By the end of the Second World War people knew how effectively advances in science and technology could produce massive death and destruction. Military needs had also driven advances in rockets, though, revving up the space race. People began to believe that other worlds might be within reach. It was probably no coincidence that serious science fiction radio drama was at its most popular during the late 1940s and 1950s.

Although not exclusively science fiction, the anthology series "Escape," broadcast by CBS from 1947-1954, included adaptations of stories by H.G. Wells and Ray Bradbury. NBC's renowned series "Dimension X," which ran from 1950 to 1951, also featured a Bradbury tale, "The Martian Chronicles." "X Minus One" (1955-58), meanwhile, included adaptations of stories by Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, L. Ron Hubbard, Isaac Asimov, James Blish and Robert Heinlen.

Other adult-oriented shows from this period included Mutual's "2000 Plus" (1950-1952) and "Exploring Tomorrow" (1957-1958). The latter was hosted by John W. Campbell, Jr., whose short story "Who Goes There?" inspired the film "The Thing." Younger audiences had their shows, too. "Space Patrol" (1950-1955) and "Tom Corbett: Space Cadet" (1952) fulfilled the fantasies of many children that dreamed of intergalactic adventure. The BBC's "Journey Into Space" (1953 to 1958) was also popular family fare.

The public's reliance on the radio as its main source of broadcast entertainment began to wane in the late 1950s, and with it went the attention of American network sponsors and the networks themselves. Science fiction radio drama seemed to have had its heyday. It didn't go away, though.

Among those leading the line for the genre in more recent years has been the BBC. The British broadcaster's productions of "The Hobbit," "Lord of the Rings" and "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" have become modern radio classics. The recent creation of BBC7, an online channel, has given genre fans further reason to celebrate the network's commitment to quality radio drama. In the last year alone, BBC7 has broadcast adaptations of "The Twilight Zone," "Doctor Who" and "The Quatermass Chronicles."

It is not just in the U.K. that fantastic tales have received serious attention, though. The SciFi Channel's "Seeing Ear Theatre" has made several sophisticated plays, including "The Kindred, a time-travel story starring Alfre Woodward ("Star Trek: First Contact"), Poul Anderson's "The Martian Crown Jewels," H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" and "City of Dreams," an anthology series produced by J. Michael Straczynski, creator or "Babylon 5." Tim Curry and Steve Buscemi have been among the featured actors.

America's National Public Radio has played its part, too. From 1999 to 2000 it commissioned and distributed a series of 40 plays under the title "2000X." The show was hosted by Harlan Ellison and featured adaptations of stories by Vonnegut, Bradbury and Ursula K. Le Guin.

L.A. Theatre Works' extensive collection of audio plays includes a version of "War of the Worlds" performed by several "Star Trek" alumni, including Leonard Nimoy, Brent Spiner, Gates McFadden, Wil Wheaton, Dwight Schultz and Armin Shimerman. Nimoy and John DeLancie (Q in "Star Trek") also formed the company "Alien Voices" with the specific purpose of producing plays based on classic science fiction stories. Their output included "The Lost World," "First Men in the Moon," "The Invisible Man" and "The Time Machine."

Another genre favourite, Claudia Christian, (Ivanova in "Babylon 5") has won acclaim in science fiction audio as the title character in a series of plays featuring interplanetary private eye "Anne Manx." Produced by The Radio Repertory Company of America, these productions have been nominated for numerous awards. In 2002 "Anne Manx and the Trouble on Chromius" won the Mark Time Gold Award, which was created specifically to recognise the best in science fiction audio.

Other independent production companies that have undertaken science fiction audio projects include "Alien Worlds," which made action adventure space dramas for CD featuring music by the London Symphony Orchestra. The archives of Great Northern Audio Theatre, which specialises in weird tales with a comic twist, also includes some science fiction.

Ironically, the popularity of certain science fiction film and television franchises has meant that they, too, have been translated into audio adventures. British company Big Finish has been producing adaptations of "Doctor Who" stories featuring the original actors for several years. Initially these were released on CD, but recently BBC7 began broadcasting a series of Big Finish productions starring Paul McGann. LucasFilm-approved full cast dramatisations of the "Star Wars" films and several original spin-offs have been successful as well.

Science fiction fans have, themselves, discovered that radio is the perfect medium through which they can contribute to the mythology of their favourite films and shows. Among the most professional are Shaven Wookie Productions' "Star Wars" series, and "The Furry Conflict," which the makers describe as "a creative and critical take-off of 'Star Trek' and 'Star Wars’…set in a cartoon-like world."

In this article I have focussed on audio productions made in Britain and America, but many other countries have played their part in the history of science fiction radio. A quick search of the internet will turn up several sites dedicated to the contribution this medium has made to the history of the genre. And the existence of these sites isn't all that internet access has done to keep science fiction audio drama alive.

For would-be producers, audio has one big advantage over visual media. It's cheap. All you need is a good microphone, actors who can enunciate and a sound effects collection. The availability of e-mail and web-hosting options means that you don't even need a licence to broadcast your efforts. Simply save your play as an MP3 and anyone can download it. Who said it was hard to get into broadcasting?

Radio also has unique virtues for science fiction fans. Many plays are available as internet downloads and players are easily portable. The spread of high-speed internet access and the advent of podcasting mean that potential listeners can also get material wherever there is an internet connection. Moreover, access to internet radio is less restricted by copyright considerations or the range of television and radio transmitters.

With science fiction film and television blockbusters capturing the headlines, it is easy to forget that radio is out there. If you are a science fiction fan, though, don't dismiss audio drama as a thing of the past. It may rely on old technology, but it still has much to offer those of us that love tales of the future.

(This article was published on the website Syfy Portal on October 18, 2005)