Movies Til Dawn

When I was a young'un growing up in LA in the mid-seventies I was a serious radio-head. I loved all forms of audio entertainment--live radio talk shows, old vintage comedy shows, KJOI (elevator music non-stop) and even the stray TV channel that you could accidentally find on an obscure frequency. (I listened to a San Diego TV station that played old TV sit-coms that for some quirk-of-technology reason you could pick up on the bottom of the FM dial). So it was with great interest that I learned one day in 4th grade from a long-forgotten friend that you could listen to comedy on the phone if you dialed 213-836-5566. The pre-recorded routines emanated from a 'station' called 'ZZZ-ZZZ, the last listing in your telephone directory!' Once dialed, the line was invariably busy but I would persist for what seems in memory to have been hours at a time, occasionally getting through. Once I got a taste of the little radio phone-plays that Z put on, I began taping them. The...