RFC 97 "Ding Dong School" from RFC Archives on Myspace.

Jeff Ellis is an incredibly good sport, allowing me to edit his song to a performance by an animated frog

Jeff Ellis is an incredibly good sport, allowing me to edit his song to a performance by an animated frog

One of the aspects of Radio Free Charleston of which I am most proud is the “mind-hurting weirdness.”  In April, 2010, for our April Fool’s Day show, we brought you the most messed-up episode of the show ever. We took music from Jeff Ellis, plus two inactive bands, Simply Sadi and The Emergency, and combined them with public domain animation.  We also have two mildy psychotic short films from Scott Elkins (starring Kitty Killton) and MURFMEEF. Then we ran a last-minute surprise at the very end, with no notice.

Making it all even more twisted, the host segments feature my voice dubbed over footage of Ding Dong School, a children’s program from the 1950s.

For some reason, I thought this was a good idea. Now you can watch it again and wonder why. Original production notes are HERE. A day later, I ran the “reveal” in The PopCulteer. Here it is…

5. About Episode 97 of RFC

Yes, it was this year’s April Fool’s joke.  This time I decided to do an entire show with the “Fake Rudy” joke that ends almost every episode of Radio Free Charleston. The kindly old schoolteacher who was mouthing my words was the host of “Ding Dong School,” a kid’s program from the 1950s.   Many thanks to The Emergency, Simply Sadi and especially Jeff Ellis, who were all very good sports and let me cut music videos using old cartoons with their music for the show. Big thanks also go out to Scott Elkins and Murfmeef for letting me use their short films for the show.

Over the end credits, that was indeed RFC’s resident diva, Melanie Larch, joining WATT4 for their version of the Police classic, “Message In A Bottle.” That just happened last Monday night and found its way into the show at the last minute.