The Macabre Program

Background

From the November 11, 1961 edition of Pacific Stars and Stripes: 

Horror Series and 5th AF Program to Make Debuts 

FEN to Air 2 New, Locally-Produced Shows

      TOKYO (FEN)--Two new--but startlingly different--weekly programs make their bow next week on the Far East Network; one a spine-tingling dramatic thriller called "Macabre," and the other a salute to the men of Fifth Air Force called "Comet and Stars."

     Lovers of thrills, chills and tales of the supernatural will be treated to a new experience 9:30 p.m. Mondays when "Macabre" will be heard weekly.     The series is filled with horror and suspense and will bring FEN listeners a new type of thriller program with an unusual approach.

     Forming the basis for the stories to be dramatized will be a procession of diabolically clever maniacs and over-zealous adventurers who tamper with supernatural powers, ultimately involving both themselves and those around them in horrifying consequences.

     This original series was created by FEN's assistant director for production, William Verdier.  Parts are filled locally, mainly by FEN staff members supplemented by local talent from various organizations in the Kanto area.

       The "Macabre" series is being distributed by the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service in Los Angeles for worldwide use by AFRTS outlets.

     The first program, titled "Final Resting Place," is the strange tale of what happens to a honeymooning couple when they stop in a small town for the night and visit a carnival.

Macabre was produced in-house by the Tokyo studios of the Far East Network of the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service. Two Air Force personnel were most responsible for creating the series: William Verdier as writer, performer, and director; and Program Director and performer, John F. Buey, Jr.. Mr. Buey entered the Civilian Service from the old Yankee Radio Network, serving as Program Director of FEN Tokyo from its inception in 1946.

The Verdiers, William and Christine, were active in several local origination FEN Tokyo productions, with Mr. Verdier responsible for the original 15 ips tape submission that resulted in the green light to produce the series of broadcast episodes.

The series arose out of an improptu competition between The Far East Network and The Armed Forces Network-Germany. Both networks sent 15 ips audition tapes to the AFRTS Headquarters in Los Angeles and FEN Tokyo won the 'competition'. The AFRTS transcribed and distributed the Macabre series on October 4, 1961-- a month before FEN Tokyo recorded a ninth episode of Macabre for Christmas Day, titled Of Frankincense and Myrrh.

FEN Launches Macabre on the lucky 13th of November 1961

Launched, appropriately enough on the 13th of November, 1961, the series ran for nine weeks, including a special Christmas Day broadcast, "Of Frankincense and Myrrh," and ending on January 8, 1962 with "Edge of Evil."

Note that in the article in the 'Provenances' sidebar below mentions a run of eight weeks. That's apparently the tenuous provenance upon which most of the misinformation about the true run of Macabre has been based for the past forty years. But in fact, in the interim, FEN Tokyo scripted a ninth program, Of Frankincense and Myrrh, to air on Christmas Day, 1961. That's the episode that has been inaccurately cited as being preempted by virtually every 'otr expert' in the world. As can now be fully demonstrated, there was, indeed, a full run of nine episodes, all of which aired from FEN Tokyo during the holiday season of 1961.

December 25 1961 FEN Radio Schedule listing Macabre broadcast at 9:30

While the scripts and production values don't rise to quite the level of the finest commercial network syndication efforts, they're certainly the equal of any of more mediocre stateside productions, especially given the fine condition of the circulating recordings. The FEN Tokyo crew produced a highly listenable and absorbing series on a shoestring budget. The ensemble cast proved wonderfully versatile and acquitted themselves well, overall.

Series Derivatives:

Notes:

Run dates varied based on AFRTS distribution throughout their various regional networks. The log we created was from the Tokyo editions of Pacific Stars and Stripes.

We invite you to compare our fully provenanced research with the Macabre log from the '1,500 expert researchers' at the OTRR. We've provided a screen shot of their current log for comparison, HERE to protect our own further due diligence, content and intellectual property.

OTRisms:

• The Christmas program of the Macabre series was never 'preempted' as the commercial otr world persistently maintain. Indeed, Pacific Stars and Stripes made quite a to do over Macabre's Christmas Day 1961 broadcast, "Of Frankincense and Myrrh." Macabre was, afterall, a hometown favorite of FEN Tokyo. Almost all of Macabre's initial broadcasts were met with great fanfare throughout the area.
• There were in fact nine Macabre programs recorded and nine Macabre programs broadcast, Q.E.D..
• The Episode numbers for The Crystalline Man and Edge of Evil should be Episode No. 8 and Episode No. 9, respectively, not Episodes 7 and 8.

The 'commercial otr community' at large continues to show little respect for the remarkable output of the AFRS and the AFRTS over the years. In a classic case of 'biting the hand that feeds you,' the commercial otr community pathologically mixes and matches the prodigious, prolific, and dedicated output of the AFRS and AFRTS over the years as a form of 'stem cells' from which to clone vintage Radio compilations they couldn't otherwise assemble without as many as ten to sixty AFRS or AFRTS-denatured exemplars passing as 'as broadcast' exemplars of a given vintage Radio series. The circulating Casey, Crime Photographer and The FBI In Peace and War canons are two other glaring examples. In the present instance, that long-standing disrespect for the output of the AFRTS is what tempted the commercial otr purveyors of the hobby to simply misrepresent the Macabre run in their long-standing belief that no one in the collector community would actually pay any attention to it, because it was an AFRTS production.

What you see here, is what you get. Complete transparency. We have no 'credentials' whatsoever--in any way, shape, or form--in the 'otr community'--none. But here's how we did it--for better or worse. Here's how you can build on it yourselves--hopefully for the better. Here are the breadcrumbs--just follow the trail a bit further if you wish. No hobbled downloads. No misdirection. No posturing about our 'credentials.' No misrepresentations. No strings attached. We point you in the right direction and you're free to expand on it, extend it, use it however it best advances your efforts.

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We don't pronounce our Golden Age Radio research as 'certified' anything. By the very definition, research is imperfect. We simply tell the truth. As is our continuing practice, we provide our fully provenanced research results--to the extent possible--right here on the page, for any of our peers to review--or refute--as the case may be. If you take issue with any of our findings, you're welcome to cite any better verifiable source(s) and we'll immediately review them and update our findings accordingly. As more verifiable provenances surface, we'll continue to update the following series log, as appropriate.

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[Date, title, and episode column annotations in red refer to either details we have yet to fully provenance or other unverifiable information as of this writing. Red highlights in the text of the 'Notes' columns refer to information upon which we relied in citing dates, date or time changes, or titles.]

AFRTS END-725 'Macabre' Program Log