Hallo friends, and welcome to Stories from the Radio, where we listen to old radio shows and laugh at them for being so old. Today, we are going to listen to something by the golden boy of old time radio, Arch Oboler. He is perhaps best known for his horror series ‘Lights Out’ but dude was pretty prolific in his time. He dabbled in radio, television, fiction, and all those other neat things. Today’s show is called Revolt of the Worms, which is an excellent name for anything. I’m hoping for some nice, golden-age-of-sci-fi-radio type story, but as we have seen time and again, you never can tell with old time radio. All we can do is hope for the best.
Some dude is saying It. Is. Later. Than. You Think.
Having to listen to that with a bell dinging between each of those words made me feel so tired.
We have been warned that if you frighten easily, turn off your radio now.
This reminds me of the time my four-year old niece said she couldn’t tell me a story she had just heard because it was so scary.
Dude has now instructed me to turn off my lights and I’m not going to do that for two reasons. One, it is daytime and two, he’s not the boss of me.
So the back story is this. We have a chemist and his wife Clare, who are living in the middle of nowhere. And he has an assistant.
This chemist is into experimenting on roses. I guess to make them....bigger? Or rosier?
He wants to develop the greatest rose in the world.
I mean the largest rose.
Actually he is not that into roses. He simply used this as a ruse to run away from the city with all its slick and evil ways.
Anyway, now in the present, Clare seems to be dead.
Because they killed her.
Hopefully ‘they’ refers to the worms, sorry Clare.
Okay so basically this is what has been happening. The chemist was putting some human hormone cocktail on the roses to make them grow faster. Then there was some left over. And the assistant asked what he should do with it. And the chemist said poop off I’m so busy all the time. So I guess the assistant threw the cocktail on the ground, where one may find so many worms.
Then Clare went out for a walk but actually she was walking all over a bunch of earthworms.
She somehow manages to sound sad and bored at the same time.
Clare is trying to tell the chemist that something is amiss and he keeps saying oh you women are so like women because you are women.
Some might call this misogyny. But I for one would have said the same thing in that situation. This of course does not make it not misogyny.
Sometimes I wish I knew what I was saying.
There was a roar like thunder which was possibly from the worms which is great.
Roaring, revolting worms sounds amazing.
Clare says the assistant Jackson is missing but the chemist doesn’t care.
It’s daytime and Jackson is still missing.
Even though it is daytime, there is so much fog that it looks like night time.
Anyway, the fog eventually lifts and they notice burrows in the yard which I guess were made by the worms.
The chemist however, has decided these are plough marks made by Jackson who went crazy, ploughed the yard and ran away.
I mean that’s one interpretation.
It’s not a very good one. But still.
It is at this moment that Clare decides to air her many grievances about their marriage.
The chemist continues to be an ass and then Clare says oh btw, she heard something outside.
The chemist just said that the sound she heard was the wind whistling through the cracks in her brain.
lol
I mean that was savage but also lol
Hark! Clare has been redeemed because now they both hear something!
I don’t hear anything.
In the most tedious way possible, Clare just said that there is something moving under the ground.
How can she see what’s happening underground though?
Never mind I don’t care.
I still can’t hear anything, which is disappointing because I thought the worms roared or something, no?
Now there seems to be holes all over the ground.
Clare has now fallen down one of those craters, bai Clare.
The chemist has finally seen one of the worms and it is 30 feet long and slimy.
He does not mention if it is in a state of revolt.
Clare has just been crushed by aforementioned worm.
So let’s summarize things so far. Clare and the assistant are dead. The worms are growing. And the chemist has probably lost interest in those roses by now.
The worms are coming up under the house and over the house.
There is a worm at the window lol
I don’t know why that is so funny.
This show has been unintentionally hilarious more than once.
Now the room is full of worms.
The chemist is being smothered by worms which is fine because he just keeps going on and on about the worms.
This guy sure talks a lot for someone who is being smothered by worms.
Oh stop saying worms worms and just die already.
Finally.
You know what? The worms sounded like radio static and didn’t roar at all.
*
Well that would have been hilarious if it hadn’t been so boring. I have always thought that these kinds of stories should start right in the thick of things and not worry so much about back story. This one may have been better served if we started right at the worms perhaps? And maybe just had one character? I did like the way the story was told, and I get that the poor production probably resulted in the repetitions sounding so...repetitive. Like maybe they were supposed to be an echo or something. I don’t know why I am making excuses for this show. Ultimately what I can say about it is the worms did not revolt or roar and I found that immensely disappointing. Hopefully we will listen to something better next time! Bai fam.
Editor: Joyce Chng.
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