For April Fool’s Day 2009 I decided that I wanted to pull a fairly elaborate, yet profoundly stupid prank.  The plan was to run production notes promising a very special episode of Radio Free Charleston with new music from Paul McCartney and Peter Buck, of REM, plus an exclusive preview of the next animated feature film by Pixar. Only in truth I pulled a bait-and-switch and instead brought loyal fans a third part to our 2008 Halloween Special, Radio Free Charleston Horror Theater.

I don’t think anyone fell for it anyway, but we did manage a fun show. Music is by Whistlepunk and Mark and Steve Beckner with Alan Young.  Mark, Steve and Alan were recorded live at LiveMix Studio at the same time that we shot the host segments, and this was one of the few times in the history of RFC that the show’s host introduced a band “live” with them in the room.

For the host segments, a last-minute schedule SNAFU meant that Kitty Killton could not reprise her role as “Celeste the Zombie Supermodel,” so we had to have a vocal stand-in to explain her absence.  Liz McCormick, Brian Young and Mel Larch return as studio zombies and Rudy reverted to his “Count Rudolf” identity. The episode truly captured the Halloween spirit…in April.

Our Animation is vintage Amiga work by Frank Panucci, and this is also the only episode where a musical guest had to be pressed into running camera because we had too many people on screen at the same time.  Thanks to Stephen Beckner, who went to college to learn how to do this sort of thing. You can read the real production notes HERE. You can see the first two parts of Radio Free Charleston Horror Theater HERE.