Friday, October 6, 2023

OTR Halloween 2023 Day 6: "Where Do You Get Your Ideas?"

"All I said to him was 'Where do you get your ideas?' and look what he did to me. I came in this bar, and I sat down quiet by myself, and I said to the bartender Charlie, make me a dry Manhattan and put two olives in it. So I had my dry Manhattan, and then I had another, and I began to look around. There wasn't anybody else in the bar but this skinny little guy in a corduroy shirt sitting down at the other end of the bar drinking ginger ale, and talking, kind of, to Charlie."

This story places creator Wyllis Cooper himself as one of the characters (although I believe he's impersonated by an actor). Cooper heads to a bar for a drink and is repeatedly bothered by a drunken man who is fascinated by Cooper's work and has ideas for stories he could tell about men from Mars; it seems these stories are based on the drunkard's own life! This is another light-hearted story and one of many episodes of Quiet, Please in which Cooper breaks down the fourth wall to comment upon his little spook show.

"Where Do You Get Your Ideas?" was originally broadcast February 20, 1949. You can listen to the episode at Quiet, Please.org.

Image created using Firefly.

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