Hip tip: ZBS Media radio shows

Jack Flanders. Either you know the name and are a rabid fan of the guy's exploits or you've never heard of him before.

Same with Ruby. You know, the galactic gumshoe?

When it comes to the audio adventure shows produced by ZBS Media, there's no real middle ground. People either don't know about 'em or they love 'em.

And what's not to love?

I heard the first Flanders series, "The Fourth Tower of Inverness," on college radio back in 1976 when I was in fourth grade and instantly loved the wild storylines mixing suspense, comedy and philosophy, the great performances and the incredible sound effects.

Flanders is a young American guy visiting an old family estate in Scotland. The mansion has three towers, but Jack sees a fourth. He's warned not to investigate but, inevitably, does. From there it's wild and weird explorations up stairs, through doorways and secret passages and into strange new dimensions.

Listening at night, with my headphones on and eyes closed, the series was an incredibly rich entertainment experience.

Fortunately, the station kept playing Flanders adventures over the years and I was able to keep up with our intrepid hero and his expeditions to Morocco ("Moon over Morocco"), alternate dimensions ("The Adventures of Jack Flanders") and Brazil ("Dreams of Rio").

And I got to hear the earliest exploits of ZBS' other popular hero, the Ruby, in her various series blending sci-fi with satire.

All great stuff, all like nothing you've ever experienced before.

The adventures of Ruby, Jack and the various one-off shows and series produced by ZBS over the years are nearly all the product of the imagination of one "Meatball Fulton," otherwise known as writer/engineer Tom Lopez.

Fulton's scripts carry the influence of comics, movies, pulps, eastern philosophy and much, much more, but reside in their own universe. Much like Joss Whedon has created a Buffyverse or Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had a Marvel Universe, this is a Meatball-verse. Things in this world move, and work, very much in their own fascinating and goofy way.

If you enjoy the stuff discussed here regularly (comics, pulps, movies, music, old-time radio, etc.), you're sure to like Fulton's stories. You owe it yourself to check 'em out.

The ZBS Web site has audio samples and downloads, or you can order the different series on CDs. Amazon has 'em too.

I see that Meatball now has a podcast, too. I'll need to check it out.



Related sites:

ZBS Media
The Whirlitzer of Wisdom
Jack Flanders Wikipedia entry


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